Amidst the disappointing loss to Ohio in the semi-final matchup of the Central States Collegiate Hockey League Tournament last weekend and continuing to prepare for the national tournament next week, Cyclone Hockey has one last home weekend matchup.

This upcoming matchup is different, but not an unusual game for the Cyclones at this point in the season.

Much like last season, the Cyclones are going up against a junior league team, rather than their usual conference or league opponents between the small break they have between the CSCHL Tournament and the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Tournament.

The Springfield Express, a junior league team based in Springfield, Mo., comes to the Ames/ISU Ice Arena to play not only as a way to keep the Cyclones “fresh,” but as a way to commemorate the seniors in their last home matchup of their college careers.

“[Springfield] is a pretty good junior team,” said coach Jason Fairman. “[But] it’s more of a way for us to keep our guys fresh because it’s hard to schedule games because a lot of team’s seasons are done. And they don’t want to play with risk of injury between our league tournament last week as you know and nationals so that’s usually a tough weekend to get teams to play.”

The Saturday night matchup between the two teams will be different from any other Saturday matchup this season.

Saturday night’s game is a way for the Cyclones organization to honor the seniors that will be playing in the final home game of their collegiate career.

This season, three seniors will be leaving the team. Co-captains Alex Stephens and Cory Sellers and forward Jake Bruhn.

“It’s going to be an emotional game, playing the last home game of their careers,” Fairman said. “All the guys that go through this, put a lot of time into [playing hockey] and you realize that it’s the last time you’re playing at home and in front of a lot of fans, friends and family.”

The emotions will be running high, but it’s not an excuse for the team to neglect what it has wanted to accomplish all season.

“We can’t get away from what we’ve been doing all season,” Sellers said. “We still need to focus on our game and focus on our systems. I mean, everything’s based on the senior night but at the end of the day it’s still two games we need to win and we need to start getting momentum for nationals the following weekend.”

The ACHA National Tournament has been the big focus this entire year, with the Cyclones wanting to rebound from their quaterfinal loss to Central Oklahoma last season.

But now the focus has to shift to facing a junior team and gaining momentum for Nationals and achieving the goal they’ve had all season: winning the championship game of the ACHA National Tournament.

“We have our biggest games of the year come next weekend,” Stephens said. “So we’ve got to get ready for that and [this would] be a good place to start.”