MASON CITY, Iowa – There isn’t a team in the North American Tier 3 Hockey League that wants to face Colin Cain right now. North Iowa’s starting goalie didn’t shut out an opponent until his 17th appearance, but came up one goal short on six different occasions before finally posting that goose-egg.
Since then, he’s held opponents to a goal or fewer in 12 of his last 13 appearances. Cain shut out both the Wisconsin Whalers and the Wausau RiverWolves this past weekend, and was named Wednesday as the NA3HL’s Bauer Central Division Star of the Week. All 24 shots that came his way in Thursday’s contest against the Whalers were turned away, and the RiverWolves got no closer to putting one away in their 22 tries Saturday night.
The Hummelstown, Pennsylvania native has allowed just three goals in his last five games, with an incredible .973 save percentage in that span. In fact, in his last 10 games, he’s kept the opponents entirely off the scoreboard five times. This is the ninth time this season that a North Iowa player has been named the division’s Star of the Week.
The first-year Bulls netminder also finds himself very much in the mix for the team’s franchise record for wins in a single season – Matthew Bartels and Chris Amsden share that mark with 25 victories apiece during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 campaigns. Cain sits at 21 wins heading into this weekend’s contests against the two-time defending NA3HL runner-up Metro Jets at the North Iowa Ice Arena.
In a manner of speaking, the Bulls had two goalies on the league’s Star of the Week list this week – Drew Scites was assigned to the Great Falls Americans just two weeks ago, and has settled in rather nicely with Jeff Heimel’s team. Scites allowed just a goal in each of his wins Friday and Saturday night against the Gillette Wild, and was named the Frontier Division’s Star of the Week for the past seven days.
Both games of this weekend’s Friday/Saturday set against the Jets start at 7:30 p.m. Live streaming coverage of all North Iowa Bulls games is available on HockeyTV, with free audio streaming Saturday on Mixlr.
Fans who give blood in this week’s LifeServe blood drives will receive half-price admission for Friday night’s home game, while Saturday night is YMCA Night at “The Barn.” For advance tickets to those games or any other Bulls home game, click here.