The Richmond Sockeyes will make a brief return from their Christmas break tomorrow night when they travel to Mission to face the Icebreakers.
The defending Pacific International Junior Hockey League champions own a sparkling 24-4-0 record and are expected to make short work of a Mission team that has won just three times in 25 games. The Sockeyes will be looking to increase their six point lead over the Delta Ice Hawks atop the Tom Shaw Conference.
Richmond rebounded from a 3-2 loss to Delta to defeat the Grandview Steelers 4-1 last Thursday at Minoru Arena. Seafair product Jeremy Hamaguchi continued to do his part to pick up the scoring slack left behind by injured forwards Justin Rai, Rudi Thorsteinson and Kyzen Loo, bagging a pair of goals. He now sits third in league scoring with 41 points, including 19 goals. Richmond Minor alumni Troy Kaczynski added a goal and an assist. Connor Wilson rounded out the scoring.
Jonah Imoo turned aside 17 shots to improve to 15-2 on the season and lower his goals against average to a league best 1.22.
In Ladner two nights earlier, the Ice Hawks managed to defeated the Sockeyes for the first time in five games.
Cody Fidgett's second period goal stood up as the game winner as Delta relied on a conservative game plan to finally solve their cross river rival.
"You just can't get behind a team like that because they really feed off their offence and get a lot of enthusiasm from their bench," said Ice Hawks head coach Dave McLellan. "The last two games we really tried to slow the game down against them and take away their chip (transition game). I'm sure it's not the funnest game to watch but it's we have to do this against them."
Despite the Ice Hawks' conservative approach the game was still played at an outstanding pace with excellent scoring chances at both ends of the rink.
Richmond's next home game is Jan.5 when the North Vancouver Wolf Pack visit Minoru Arena.
