The Grand Fork Border Bruins held their annual Family Weekend at the Jack Goddard Memorial Arena with a pair of home games and plenty of the players' families in attendance.
The weekend started with the Bruins in first place in the league, with several teams nipping at their heels.
On Friday night, the Bruins hosted the Osoyoos Coyotes. Grand Forks and Osoyoos only compete once a year in the regular season, but the Bruins saw the Coyotes twice in pre-season.
About halfway through the first period, the Bruins opened the scoring with a back-and-forth rush up-ice between Alex Edwards and Thomas Clarke which saw Edwards get his 10th goal of the season. Two minutes later, Brandon Gray made a pass from the far wall back to Keenan Holland at the hash marks, and Holland flicked the puck over the left shoulder of Osoyoos netminder Jaiden Jakubowski to put the Bruins ahead by two.
The Coyotes responded with four minutes left in the period when Mattieu Lessard played the puck forward to Mason Rudolph. Rudolph didn't have a clear lane but passed the puck across the Bruins crease to Spencer Fleck, who caught an open side of the Bruins net to put the game within one at the first intermission.
Levi Astill, who is at the top of the league for points this season, scored his 30th goal on the power play in the second period with assists from Tyler Burke and Nash Wassing.
In the third, Ryker Rougeau was set up by Clarke and Wassing for his sixth goal of the season at 4:42, giving the Bruins a comfortable lead. Still, a late penalty saw the Coyotes on a power play of their own with 37 seconds to play, Rudolph scored for the visitors (assists to Scott Dyke and Matthew Lowry) for a final score of 4-2.
The Bruins' defence supported goaltender Eric Kahl, who only received around a dozen shots all night.
Saturday night saw a highly anticipated rematch with the Fernie Ghostriders - the Bruins played in Fernie just before the holiday break in a game that tilted in the Ghostriders favour in round four of a shoot-out.
Nash Wassing, who scored twice in the earlier game, opened the scoring after stealing a misplayed puck at the Fernie blue line and firing a shot right up the slot catching Cooper Anderson five-hole. There were no penalties in the first period, but that was offset by a busy second frame.
The only goal scored in the second was the Riders Riley Enns, from a Jack Lambert pass. The aftermath of that goal led to several roughing penalties for both sides. A brief Fernie power play was negated after a goaltender interference call against the power play unit, but neither team could capitalize on their opportunities.
Liam Breakenridge put Fernie ahead six minutes into the third period, but Nathan Flanagan tied the game for the Bruins at the mid-point in the period. Adam Lee and Hunter Paterson had the assists on the tying goal.
The game went to overtime, as just as fans thought it might continue to a shoot-out, Riders Captain Taylor Haggerty scored the winner three-on-three at 3:07 of overtime.
With five games left on the regular season schedule, two at home and three on the road, the Bruins are still in a race for the Presidents' Cup, have their playoff spot secured, and are four points away from securing the top spot in the division and best seeding going into the playoffs.
The Bruins play in Castlegar this Friday, Feb. 7, then have a bit of a gap in the schedule. They'll play the Braves in Spokane on Saturday, Feb. 15, then their next home game that Sunday, Feb. 16 when the Beaver Valley Nitehawks are in town in a 2 p.m. matinee game.