With eight regular season games remaining in the ISU Men’s Ice Hockey season, every game has an effect on the team’s ranking for the national tournament. For No. 5 Cyclone Hockey (26-5-1), this weekend’s games hold great importance. The team will take on No. 7 Weber State (18-5-1) at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Ames/ISU Ice Arena, 1505 Gateway Hills Park Drive.

“The only way to solidify that spot and get a good seed going into nationals, which is the most important thing, is to beat teams like that,” said captain David Moline.

The top-16 ranked teams are selected to play in the national tournament. Wins this weekend against Weber State would go a long way toward building confidence for the team by adding to the list of teams in the top-16 they have beaten. Weber State would also be the highest ranked team that Cyclone Hockey has defeated all season.

“You want to know you’ve had success against a highly ranked team and you want to know that you can beat them,” Moline said.

Beating Weber State will be a difficult task. However, the team has a good idea of what to expect.

“They’re a good team, with a lot of players back from previous years,” said coach Al Murdoch. “They’re a good skating team, and they’ll be very physical team.”

To confront Weber State, Moline said he feels there are a few key areas that the team must focus on. A good defense will play a large role in combating Weber State’s physical play. Going hand in hand with the defense will be Cyclone Hockey’s ability to control its emotions and stay out of the penalty box when team members are faced with the physical play of Weber State.

The team’s final stretch of 10 regular season games got off to an excellent start last weekend as it easily defeated Minnesota-Duluth by scores of 11-2 on Sunday and 10-4 on Saturday in Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

The opportunity to play in Wells Fargo thrilled both captain and coach.

“It’s one of the nicest rinks I’ve played in and I’d sure like to do it again,” Moline said. “It was a good event, and I really had a good time.”

Murdoch agreed and was grateful his team could do that.

“Just a great opportunity, and we’re really appreciative that the [Iowa] Stars gave us that opportunity,” he said.

Team members believe that winning the first two games of the final stretch can be a springboard for the rest of the regular season.

“Our guys are really rolling now,” Murdoch said. “We’ve got some good momentum going, and we want to see us keep rolling right through the play-offs.”