Game Day No. 14

The Bucks will host the Amarillo Gorillas tonight in hopes of extending their current win streak to five games. Hopefully you all got out to donate blood in this season's "Give Blood, Play Hockey" blood drive and marrow registration. If not, there's still time!

Meanwhile, sorry for the lack of preview in today's paper; there's a lot going on with high school football playoffs and high school basketball starting and everything, so the Bucks not having practice yesterday didn't really lend itself to me getting a story in about tonight's game. Here is Bryan Benway 's preview.

These teams head into the game owning the exact opposite records, with the Bucks at a Southern-Conference leading 9-4-0 (18 points) and the Gorillas at a conference-worst 4-9-0 (eight).

Of course, records don't always mean everything, as we saw the Wichita Thunder (4-8-1, nine) hang tough with the Bucks and the Gorillas topple the Odessa Jackalopes (7-5-2, 16) last weekend.

Coach Ruskowski told me heading into Thursday night's game that each of his goaltenders would get a start this weekend, so that means rookie backup Ryan Gibb should be making his fourth appearance of the season tonight.

So far, Gibb is 2-1-0 (1-0-0 at home), with 3.00 goals-against average and .916 save percentage.

The Jackalopes will tangle with the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees (7-2-2, 16) tonight at Dodge Arena after the two teams met last night at Ector County Coliseum in what was an interesting game, to say the least. I listened to it online while I was pulling stuff off the wire, and it seems the penalties on the Jackalopes' players, coaches and fans got plenty of people a little worked up.

The Texas Brahmas (8-3-1, 17), who currently sit one point behind the Bucks in the Southeast Division standings, will host the Tulsa Oilers (3-7-1, seven) in their game tonight, while the last-place team in the division, the Corpus Christi IceRays (4-6-1, nine) is hosting the Mississippi RiverKings (8-6-0, 16).

Other games tonight pit the Oklahoma City Blazers against the Thunder, the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs against the Colorado Eagles, the Rapid City Rush against the Rocky Mountain Rage and the Arizona Sundogs against the New Mexico Scorpions in a game the refs probably hope won't be similar to last night's.

In the NHL, the Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators already picked up wins today, defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers, respectively. I guess if the Pens had to lose, it's good to have their division leader lose, too.

Tonight's games have the Columbus Blue Jackets at the Atlanta Thrashers, the New York Islanders at the Buffalo Sabres, the Phoenix Coyotes at the Philadelphia Flyers, the Chicago Blackhawks at the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins at the Montreal Canadiens, the St. Louis Blues at the Minnesota Wild, the Anaheim Ducks at the Dallas Stars, the Detroit Red Wings at the Calgary Flames, the Washington Capitals at the San Jose Sharks and the Colorado Avalanche at the Los Angeles Kings.