There was a buzz in the air Friday night as the top two north division teams met in the final weekend of the regular season in front of a packed house at The Plex.

The win gave the Hawks a regular season record of 23-1 as they finished on top of the North division.

As they have so many times this season he Hawks got on the scoreboard first as Greg Virgo teamed up with Jeff Young and Bryan Kazarian. Less than a minute later Kazarian put the Hawks up 2-0 with assists to Virgo and Nick Quaid.

Durham got goals from Jim Hutchinson and Chris Hopkins to tie it up as the first period wound down.

Brent MacDermid put the Hawks ahead 30 seconds into the second on a highlight reel goal which saw him undress a a Durham defenceman before deking goalie Troy Loucks and then firing it over the prone goalie.

Shawn Walker' goal to put the Hawks up 4-2 chased Loucks from the Durham net.

Durham was not ready to quit and bounced back with a goal by Jeff McMillan midway through the second. 

Kazarian notched his eighth of the season to regain the two-goal margin with five minutes remaining in the third.

The Hawks jumped ahead 6-3 in the third with MacDermid's second goal of the night and it looked like the game was out of reach but Durham coach John Antonopolous made the unusual move of pulling his goalie with more than nine minutes left in the game. The move paid off and the T-Cats narrowed the margin to 6-4.

When the Winterhawks took a penalty with just over five minutes to go in the period, Antonopolous rolled the dice again, yanked the goalie and all of a sudden it was 6-5.

The Durham net was empty again in the final minute of the game but this time it was the Hawks who would score as Shawn Walker out hustled a Durham defender to score.