Cyclone Hockey will hope to continue its winning ways this weekend when the junior national champions, North Iowa Bulls, come to Ames/ISU Ice Arena.

Through the first two weeks of the season the Cyclones are 4-0-0, with two wins against Waldorf and the professional Huntsville Havoc.

Despite the Cyclones holding an undefeated record, ISU coach Al Murdoch said there are areas for the team to continue to improve upon.

“I consider it still early, so we aren’t in the condition we will be in down the road,” Murdoch said. “We just need to become more precise in all areas.”

For Cyclone goalie Scott Ismond, there is one stat that has really stuck out to him through the first several weeks of the year.

“We are getting a lot of blocked shots for this stage in the year,” Ismond said. “I think that shows the chemistry that we have on this team; we have never really had that before.”

North Iowa comes into the series with a 3-0-0 record. One year ago the Bulls won the USA Hockey Tier III National Championship.

The Bulls are led in scoring by Timothy Santopoalo, who enters the series with six points. Jared Schletty has been the primary goaltender for North Iowa, playing 120 minutes and allowing only three goals.

The Cyclones and Bulls faced off last year with the Bulls coming away with a 5-2 victory. 

“We underestimated them last year,” Murdoch said. “I thought we should have beat them, but obviously they scored more goals than we did.”

There are several keys to getting a win this time around. 

“We need to play our style, use our ability to be physical in all three zones and to counter attack quickly,” Murdoch said. “I also think our goaltending is much improved from last year with Matt Cooper and Scott Ismond.”

Ismond said one of the keys will be to not treat these games any differently than other games on the schedule.

“Being from only North Iowa they will probably bring down a pretty good fan base,” Ismond said. “We just have to treat this like any other game though.”

Another thing that Murdoch will be keeping his eye on this weekend is Bulls players with hopes that some might end up in ISU uniforms. 

“The Junior A guys from all over the world are the players that we recruit,” Murdoch said. “So we will be looking at these guys looking for players that could be prospective students and athletes for us.”

The Cyclones’ series with North Iowa starts at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Ames/ISU Ice Arena, the second game of the series is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.