Bloomington, IL – Week 19 of the United States Hockey League Season put the Bloomington Thunder on their furthest road trip of the season and the frigid North Country did not bother the team. They came away with three of four points against the Fargo Force to improve to 16-16-6. They rank sixth in the Eastern Conference of the USHL with 39 points and are just four points behind the Youngstown Phantoms for the fourth and final playoff spot. Bloomington has 20 more games left in the USHL season. In their last six games, they have turned in a point streak of 4-0-2 with four games coming on the road. Jack Jenkins (University of Notre Dame) saw his point streak come to an end but he leads the team with 24 points (10g, 14a) and eight points in his last five games.

AUDIO HIGHLIGHTS

1/30/15 at Fargo – The Thunder opened game one of their two game series with the Fargo Force on Friday and took home the 4-3 win behind two goals from Van Barr (Western Michigan University). The Force managed to tally the first goal but the Thunder responded with four over the first and second periods. Blake Gober tallied his third goal in two games to tie the game at one at the end of the first. Barr scored on the power play at 1:04 to make it 2-1 with the assists going to Jenkins and Max Gottlieb (Brown University). Jake Slaker would take the only Thunder penalty of the game but made up for it as soon as he stepped out of the box. He scored unassisted just 10 seconds after the penalty expired to make it 3-1. Barr grabbed his second of the night with Jenkins again grabbing an assist on the play along with Ryan Galt (University of Nebraska-Omaha). In the third, the Force turned up the heat and potted two goals to bring the game within one. With 13 minutes to play, the Thunder were able to withstand the final push and take the win. Hayden Lavigne (University of Michigan) stopped 15 in route to his third straight win for Bloomington.

1/31/15 at Fargo – In game two of the weekend, the game opened very similar but ended with the Thunder only tallying one point in the standings in a 3-2 shootout loss. Fargo opened the scoring again, this time in the second period, but the Thunder would take the 2-1 lead into the third. Matt Mendelson (Penn State University) picked up his ninth goal of the season and under a minute later Tarek Baker (University of Minnesota) potted his fifth of the season. Through two periods, the Thunder outshot the Force 36-11 and eventually ended the game with 47 shots on net to Fargo’s 23. Fargo’s leading scorer Mikey Eyssimont (St. Cloud State University) would tie the game at 11:17 of the third and take the game to overtime. In the extra period the teams each earned chances but were unsuccessful beating the goaltenders Logan Halladay (University of Minnesota) and Mathias Israelsson so we would move to the shootout to decide the game. Kyle Sylvester scored the only goal in the shootout as the Force grabbed the extra point in the shootout, ending the Thunder’s four game win streak.

Next Home Game: Friday, February 13th at 7:00 pm CST is the Thunder’s Par-A-Dice Casino T-shirt Giveaway Night. Be one of the first 1,000 fans in the building to get a free Par-A-Dice Casino Thunder T-Shirt when the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders return to the Coliseum for the final game of their season series. There will also be 500 Thunder posters available to the first patrons in the building. The Thunder poster is number five in Bloomington’s seven part series. Call the Thunder office at (309) 434-2980 for tickets today.