Gameday Central: February 6 vs. New Ulm

TONIGHT’S PROMOTIONS: North Iowa celebrates Jurassic Night tonight with roaming dinosaur characters on the concourse and $3 Pseudo Sue draws throughout the game at the beer stand. “Sue” will also be on the ice during the first intermission to compete with a few lucky fans. For a schedule of upcoming promotions, click here.

NEW TERRITORY AGAINST NEW ULM: The last get-together between the teams last week covered brand-new ground for the North Iowa offense, posting its biggest win against the Steel since the team’s move to New Ulm during the 2016 offseason. Only a 14-1 win to close out the 2012-13 regular season against the then-Twin City Steel was a more lopsided margin in the Bulls’ favor. 18 players found their way onto the North Iowa score sheet in last week’s game, including 10 players who posted goals in the contest. Carter Newpower and Carson Jones posted a goal and two assists apiece in that contest.

STEELING A GLANCE AT HISTORY: North Iowa’s win last night helped to extend a lengthy run at home, and home winning streaks are a subject in which the Steel have factored significantly recently. The Bulls’ current 17-game streak is the longest winning streak at home since the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, when the Bulls won 19 in a row on home ice. The loss that set the mark for beginning that streak was an overtime defeat on February 5, 2016 to Twin City (a team which the Bulls would dispatch in the Silver Cup semifinals), and the loss that ended that streak won every game on home ice was a January 27, 2017 defeat against the newly-minted New Ulm Steel. The streak does not include a pair of home wins in the 2016 playoffs, nor does it include a neutral-site NA3HL Showcase loss to the Metro Jets, in which North Iowa was considered the home team.

A BULL MARKET: Two of the most recent additions to the North Iowa roster come to the team from the Amarillo Bulls of the North American Hockey League – defenseman Jase Sofo recently became the latest North Iowa Bulls player to sign an NAHL tender, inking with the Amarillo Bulls. He notched three points in four games with Amarillo earlier in the year, including a pair of assists in his junior debut in October, and joined the North Iowa roster in time for their first games of 2021 at Alexandria. Sofo has three assists with North Iowa, including two in last week’s win over the Steel. He is the 41st Bulls player all-time to sign an NAHL tender, and the seventh to sign one with Amarillo. Max Gutjahr made his North Iowa net last night, after an 0-3 start to the year in Amarillo – Gutjahr won 20 games a year ago in the NAHL, plus a 4-2 win at the NAHL Showcase over the U.S. National Team Development Program’s U17 team.

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