Brian Kimmes

The SDSU men’s hockey club hosts their league tournament this weekend. Four teams from the Great Plains Hockey Association compete on Friday and Saturday night. South Dakota State is the number one ranked team, Creighton University is ranked second, Iowa State University J.V. team is ranked third and Carlton College is the fourth seed.

SDSU will play Carlton at 6 p.m. Friday night and Creighton and Iowa State battle afterwards. The losers of the two games will play each other for third place Saturday at 4 p.m., while the winners square off at 6 p.m. for the championship. The winner of the tournament receives the league traveling trophy, the Walnut Cup. Dordt College won the cup last year, but is not in the tournament this year to defend their title.

SDSU comes into the tournament as the favorite, having lost only one conference game all year, to Carlton. The Jacks defeated Carlton three times during the regular season, Creighton four times and Iowa State twice. The Jacks only faced Iowa State twice this season, compared to the four times against the other squads. SDSU opened the season in