Winter sports in Bismarck usually means basketball and wrestling, but this season there has been some pretty good hockey played at the VFW Sports Center.

The Bismarck High boys are off to the best start in the history of the program at 10-0-0. The Bismarck Blizzard girls team is also perfect after its first six games. The Bobcats are fighting for first place in the NAHL's Central Division.

Century is the only one of the building's tenants that isn't going great guns. But even though they're just 4-6-0 overall, the Patriots are 4-2-0-1 in the West Region and gave Bismarck its toughest challenge to date, losing to the Demons in overtime.

There should be more great action this week. The Blizzard play host to Grand Forks, which sits atop the state girls' standings, on Friday and defending state champion Fargo North on Saturday. Following those games each night the Bobcats will play North Iowa, the leader in the Central Division and their fiercest rival this season.

Bismarck will get a chance to cement its status as the West's best on Thursday when it travel to Williston. The Coyotes are 8-1-0, their only loss coming to Bismarck.

Bismarck set school records for victories (24) and consecutive wins (20) last season, but the Demons lost a huge and talented senior class to graduation from that club, which took fourth at state.

Nobody expected the Demons to fall apart - they got the nod to win the West in the Tribune's preseason coaches' poll - but Bismarck may be even better than last season.

Bismarck had a ready-made top line in Jared Hochhalter, Tyler Richter and Patrick Anderson, but the Demons have had terrific scoring depth. Carson Winkels and CalvinKrueger have thrived in expanded roles, and plenty of newcomers have emerged, helping Bismarck average 6.4 goals per game.

The defense was expected to be good and has not disappointed, as the Demons have surrendered 2.0 goals per game. The pleasant surprise has been the goaltending, especially the play of sophomore Lawrence Dvorak, who has given up 10 goals in his five starts.

But the watershed moment for Bismarck came on Dec. 27, when they traveled to Fargo and handled South, 5-2. That victory left Bismarck as the lone unbeaten team in the state.

It was Bismarck's most significant regular-season victory in years.

South still hasn't lost to anybody else.

"They knocked off probably the best team in the state in Fargo South,"Bismarck coach Mike Peluso said. "They played a great game. It wasn't by any means, I feel, a fluke."

The West Region's futility at state has been well-chronicled. The Demons have sent promising teams to Grand Forks before, often to lose in the first round, never coming home with a title.

Peluso knows the history all too well. He helped lead the best Bismarck squad of them all to the finals in 1992, only to lose in overtime to a Minot team the Demons had routed twice during the regular season.

Maybe this can be the year the Demons break through - they have made the semis twice in the past five years - maybe not.

But Peluso thinks Bismarck will be a contender.

"I think they realize they can beat anybody in the state,"Peluso said. "It's just the preparation from now until then. That's basically what it's going to boil down to.

"They've got to put the work in."

(Lou Babiarz is the Tribune sports editor.)