Last weekend, the Cyclone Hockey team opened up the season with a strong performance, beating the Illinois State Redbirds in both games by a sizable margin in the battle of the ISU’s.

Coach Jason Fairman, who expressed concern before the series against the Redbirds, was not very pleased with the effort from his team. The Cyclones dominated the series despite the lack of practice time compared to its other ACHA counterparts, before the season began.

“I don’t think we played as well as I thought we should have.” Fairman said. “I thought we would be further along than we were.

“There were times that I thought we played pretty well, but when I went and watched the video at least from Friday night, I was actually disappointed.”

Some of the players who made key impacts during the series last weekend included junior forward Tony Uglem, a team leading goal scorer for the past two years, notched two goals during the first of two games.

Both Cyclone goalies held strong performances against the Redbirds during last weekend’s home series.

“We feel confident in the goaltending position, that we’ve got some depth and we will generally get a pretty good performance,” Fairman said. 

In the first of two games, senior goaltender Derek Moser was en route to his first shutout of the season before a power play was able to spoil those chances of an otherwise superior performance.

The later half of the series was held to those standards as Matt Goedeke, also a senior, let in just one goal during the second period, completing the sweep.

“A lot of times you need goaltenders to be strong at the beginning of the year to carry a team that’s working through developing new players,” Fairman said. 

The Cyclones look to keep the momentum rolling with a home and home series against the University of Waldorf Warriors who finished the season last year 32-21-9. The Warriors record remains unblemished this year after three games on the season.

“We need to keep developing as a team and the big thing is getting an effort from all of the players,” Fairman said. “Guys are still competing for spots and there are lots of guys who are still trying to prove themselves and I need to see effort and some understanding of that they are getting the way we play the game here.”

The puck drops for the first game in the home and home series this Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Ames/ISU Arena with the second game to follow Saturday 7 p.m. in Albert Lea, Minnesota.