Bobcats Welcome Minot for Critical Clash
BISMARCK, ND – The Bismarck Bobcats will host the hottest team in the North American Hockey League when the Minot Minotauros come to town for a one-off intrastate showdown Friday at the VFW Sports Center.
Minot rides into town on a six-game tear, the longest active streak in the NAHL and the fourth-longest streak among any team this season. Two of those six wins have come at the expense of the black and gold.
“We haven’t been able to beat Minot yet and we want to turn that around Friday,” stated Bobcats defenseman Jeremy O’Keefe, in his second year on the Bobcat blue line. “We made some mistakes against them and left points on the ice. We need to play tough and smart and leave it all out there because these are two points that we need.”
Coming into the weekend, the fourth-place Minotauros (11-12-1, 23 pts) sit five points behind the second-place Cats (13-11-2, 28 pts) but have two games in hand over the Capital City crew.
The Tauros have built their streak on strong goaltending from Tyler Parks, who has been in net for five of the six wins and has allowed one goal or less in four of the five contests, with the only “blemish” coming at the hands of the Bobcats, who put up four on the 6’6” netminder on Thanksgiving before succumbing in the shootout.
Parks only allowed one goal in two games last weekend against the division-leading Austin Bruins as the Tauros swept Austin out of Maysa Arena.
“If we want to beat Parks Friday, we need to get traffic in front of him,” assessed Bobcats head coach and general manager Layne Sedevie, a former Division I and professional goalie himself, “because Tyler is excellent at making that first save and through two games we’ve let him see nearly every first shot we’ve taken. But you can’t save what you can’t see; we need to take away his eyes with screens and get him moving side-to-side.”
Sedevie’s Bobcats will hope to ride the hot play of the recently assembled unit of Mike Dockry, Patrick Moore and Adam Knochenmus, who combined for four goals and three assists in Saturday’s 5-4 win at Aberdeen. Dockry himself has eight points in his last eight games to become the Cats’ fifth-leading scorer with 12 points.
Tickets for the game are on sale right now and fans can reserve tickets by calling the box office at 222-3300 or buying and printing their tickets online at BismarckBobcats.com.
Friday’s battle of US-83 will be broadcast locally on the radio home of Bobcat Hockey, Super Talk 1270, KLXX-AM, and worldwide on the official internet television partner of the NAHL, FASTHockey, at http://nahl.fasthockey.com. Pregame coverage gets under way at 6:45 PM.
Pro-rated season tickets for the 2012-13 season are now on sale—and going fast! Call the Bobcat Hockey office today at (701) 222-3300 to reserve your seats for another great season of Championship Entertainment.