Roseau at Warroad
7:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 8

The granddaddy of all hockey rivalries continues its biannual series when No. 7-1A Warroad (9-5-1) hosts Roseau (7-6-0) Thursday night at the Warroad Gardens. It’s a game that has been featured nationally by sources as wide-ranging as Sports Illustrated and the New York Times and with good reason, for these are two towns that love and support local hockey. This year has been more of a challenge on the ice for both programs, each of whom lost significant pieces from last year’s outstanding teams.

The Rams graduated every player who scored more than one varsity goal, leaving a new crop of youngsters to guide the way, including leading scorers Logan Monsrud (7-9-16), Brandon Lund (5-9-14) and Bryden Stoskopf (8-5-13). As expected, Roseau has been up and down, with outstanding results such as a 4-2 win at Blaine early in the season mixed in with disappointing losses.

Warroad also lost two-thirds of its record-setting top line and is missing the remaining piece (Kobe Roth) due to injury. After a 5-0-0 start, the Warriors have gone 4-5-1 in the last 10 games and are scoring just 2.47 goals per game. Defensively, Warroad has been very good with defensemen such as Luke Jaycox (2-7-9) and Jade Cole (1-5-6) supporting goaltender Alex Burke, who is 9-5-1 with a 2.15 goals against average and a .920 save percentage.