After looking through the upcoming games for this weekend, my vote for the game of the week is....*cue drumroll*... 

The Bloomington Blades at the Carmel Gold Icehounds.  

This one has everything you like about high school sports, a team stacked with seniors, a perennial hockey power house versus the team with the hot hand, and both are top ten teams in the INHockey.net rankings (Bloomington ranked #2 and Carmel ranked #9 in the state). 

So let's talk teams....

Bloomington carries a solid 9-2 record along with nine seniors into the Carmel Ice Skadium.    But looking at games played, I think this will be Bloomington’s first real test, outside of a game against the Columbus Icemen back at the beginning of October, which was a close 2-3 loss for the Blades.

On the other side of the puck, Carmel holds a 9-10 record. However, 15 of those games came against opponents in the Illinois Scholastic Hockey League.  So far, Carmel is 2-2 against opponents in the Indiana State High School Hockey Association, splitting a couple of games with Lake Central Blue, dropping a close one to St. Joseph and cleaning up a relatively weak Westfield team.  This will be a statement game for Carmel after announcing their participation in the Illinois Scholastic League, in addition to the ISHSA, in order to see better competition.    

It should be a relatively close game filled with solid hockey.  If you're twisting my arm and asking for my gut feeling, I'm calling for the Blades to eek this one out, 3-2.  Look for Bloomington's seniors to have a strong showing tonight. 

Anyone looking for a hockey fix this weekend  should put this on their list!