The Mountain View Colts are gearing up for a 3 game weekend, starting tonight with a very special celebration that traces back over a decade.
Tonight is the Colts’ annual Ride For Dad Charity Game, when Mountain View welcomes the Red Deer Vipers to the Centennial Place Arena in Three Hills.
The Colts have been forced to play their home games in various locations following the closure of the Didsbury Memorial Complex back in December. As a result, the annual Charity Game will be played in one of their current homes away from home.
Over the past several years, the Colts organization has raised over $250,000 in support of the Rural Alberta chapter of the Ride For Dad. The Ride For Dad, in support of the Prostate Cancer Fight Foundation, holds motorcycle and power sport events raising funds for the fight against prostate cancer. The event is the brain child of Fran Murphy, who first organized the Ride For Dad game about 14 years ago.
Last year the Colts raised over $13,000 for the Rural Alberta Ride For Dad during the Ride For Dad Charity Game.
Colts Head Coach, Ron Doig, says community outreach is a key component of being a Colts player.
“I think it’s important and it’s why we try to stay as local as possible. Obviously we have 5-6 guys from out of the area who come here to go to school, but I think the local guys buy into this this kind of stuff. They want to help out in the community and help out in Didsbury or wherever. I think the local guys are really excited about Friday night.”
The game will feature the second game in 6 nights between the Colts and Red Deer Vipers. The Vipers edged out the Colts by a score of 5-4 last Saturday night in Red Deer.
Doig opines on the Vipers.
“We we’re all over them on Saturday, we out shot them 2 to 1 for most of the night. Anytime you put up over 25 shots a game you expect to win, but we gave up some breakaways on powerplays that led to some short handed goals against. We got a break, High River went into Red Deer this week and beat them so that puts us back to even in the standings. Win tonight and we should be able to lock ourselves into 2nd place in the standings.”
The Colts enter this weekend’s action with a record of 17 14 2, with 36 points they are currently 1 point up on the 3rd place Vipers. Both team have 5 games remaining this regular season.
The Mountain View Colts Ride For Dad Charity game goes tonight at 8PM at the Centennial Place Arena in Three Hills. The Colts will then host the Rocky Rams in Cremona on Saturday night, before traveling to Okotoks on Sunday to battle the Bison.
96.5 The Ranch will have live coverage of the Saturday night game in Cremona, live coverage of Colts vs Rams can be heard begining at 7:55PM.
