By: Ken Oda, minotauroshockey.com
This weekend’s home and home series between the Minotauros and Bobcats will close out the regular season for the North Dakota rivals. From a standings perspective the games amount to little more than spirited exercise as both teams will head into the Robertson Cup Playoffs and the Central Division standings locked. However fans who have watched any of the rival’s three exhibition meetings this year (two preseason, and one mid-season in Dickinson, ND) can tell you that when Minot and Bismarck meet the circumstances hardly matter.
Games between the two clubs this year have for the most part featured stellar goaltending, physical play, a fight or two, and usually the home team winning. With little at stake the line-ups this weekend may be a little different than usual. Tyler Parks will most likely not see any time for the Tauros to give him more time to recover from being run in Brookings last Friday. Both teams’ first goal this weekend will be to avoid any injuries.
Despite the playoff seeding already being locked in the Tauros still can reach a couple of milestones. With a pair of wins the Tauros could take the season set from the Bobcats and have in state bragging rights for the summer. Also two more wins would get the Tauros to 28 on the season which would be four times as many wins as the club had in it’s inaugural season last year.
Watch the games: Friday’s game in Bismarck can be seen on the NAHL’s webcast partner fasthockey.com. Tickets for Saturday night’s regular season finally at the Maysa are still available by clicking the tickets tab atop this page.