Cyclone Hockey didn’t get much of a break this Thanksgiving. Players spent most of the last 10 days in a bus, on the ice and in the weight room. During break, the Cyclones (14-5-1) took three of four games on the road against North Dakota State and No. 18 Eastern Michigan.

Leading up to its weekend series at North Dakota State, the team took advantage of its time off and practiced twice a day, in addition to grueling off-ice workouts and mandatory study sessions.

“With the week off we were able to take it up a notch in conditioning,” said coach Al Murdoch. “But with finals coming up, we made sure every player had two hours of study time every day. It seems that the better the grades are the better we play, so this has been a good semester all around.”

The No. 6 Cyclones pushed their winning streak to three last weekend when they swept North Dakota State in impressive fashion, 7-2 and 4-0.

“All things considered, both games were very equal,” Murdoch said. “The biggest difference was goaltending. Christian Johansson went hard for all 60 minutes and did a fantastic job for us.”

Johansson, a freshman from Goteborg, Sweden, recorded both wins in the net for the Cyclones, including his first career shutout in game two on Sunday.

Junior Jayson Peterson and sophomore Bill Adolph led the Cyclones offensively, combining for six of the 11 goals scored during the weekend. Peterson and Adolph were named Cyclone Hockey’s Offensive Players of the Week for the past two weekends.

The Cyclones didn’t miss a beat against North Dakota State, despite playing without Allen Raushel, Mike Paulsen, Trent Baker and Matt Verdoni, who were all out because of injury or illness.

“I feel good about where we’re at right now,” Murdoch said. “Our chemistry is outstanding, and at times this weekend I saw glimpses of a national championship level team.”

On Nov. 17 and 18, the Cyclones split a conference road series with Eastern Michigan, ending up on the losing end of a 4-3 game Friday night and returning the favor with a 4-3 victory on Saturday.

“I thought we played well enough to win both games against Eastern Michigan, but we had a few guys get banged up in the first game and let it slip away,” Murdoch said. “But we came back hard the next night for a big win, and it’s always refreshing to walk away with a win in the last game of a road series.”

The Cyclones found themselves tied with Eastern Michigan at the end of both the first and second periods in game two but managed to outscore the Eagles 2-1 in the final period, highlighted by sophomore Aaron Neville’s game-winner.

The Cyclones look toward an important conference series this weekend against No. 5 Ohio University (14-4-1), the preseason favorite to win the Central States Collegiate Hockey League. This will be the first of four consecutive home series for the Cyclones, who will stay in Ames until the third weekend of January.