The Columbia Valley Rockies Junior B boys hockey team is back on the ice, playing a few exhibition games before the start of the regular season and showing some promise for the year to come.

The first exhibition game was held last weekend, and the Rockies managed to crush the Golden Rockets 5-0 on August 30th.

“Golden’s just hurting for numbers,” said Rockies general manager Ross Bidinger. “We went up there and played a whole lot of new players, while Golden has so few players right now. We’ve done a much better job recruiting.”

The Rockies have more than 40 players in the team’s camp right now — a fair number of them local to the Upper Columbia Valley.

Bidinger said some players on the roster might end up moving up to Junior A, but that also some players in Junior A camps right now could end up moving back down to the Rockies in the next few weeks.

“There’s a lot of stuff in the wings for us. So far it’s looking good,” he said.

The Rockies have a total of four exhibition games, including last weekend’s victory over Golden. The second game was against the Fernie Ghostriders in Invermere at the Eddie Mountain Memorial Arena on Tuesday, September 1st, the third takes place tonight (Wednesday, September 2nd) in Fernie (again against the Ghostriders) and the fourth is set for Thursday, September 3rd in Invermere against the Rockets. The team will then kick off its regular season on Friday, September 11th. Visit rockieshockey.ca.