After a pair of dominating wins last weekend, the ISU hockey team will look to match that same intensity. The Cyclones take on Kansas on Friday and Saturday nights with the hopes of starting the season 4–0.

It will be a full house at Ames Ice Arena as this weekend is Family Weekend.

“This is the one weekend of the year where we honor family,” coach Al Murdoch said. “Family is very important to me and very important to the team.”

Murdoch also mentioned that Family Weekend means a lot both on and off the ice.

The Cyclones’ opponent, the Jayhawks, will give them another good conference test. Last season the Cyclones swept Kansas, but with a new year comes new challenges.

“Kansas has always been a good skating team as well as a good hustling team,” Murdoch said. “They have had good goaltending the last couple years as well, and I don’t expect this year to be any different.”

The Cyclones would love to come out like they did last Friday when they scored seven goals in the first period. Murdoch said attacking the net and crashing after the shot would be very important if they want to keep up the offense.

“I want us to have a man at the net and ready to shoot and two guys to be ready to rebound the shots,” Murdoch said. “This is important if we want to come out strong.”

The Cyclones have been preparing for this weekend in practice by working on special teams, penalty play and penalty killing. Murdoch wants his team to be sharp and ready to go for Friday night. In the first two games, Iowa State was able to take advantage of Missouri being down a man and even scored a short-handed goal. Murdoch said the team still needs to get better.

Along with Family Weekend, Iowa State will also induct five former players into the Cyclone Hockey Hall of Fame.

The inductees include: Dr. Larry Weirick, who played in the ‘60s and whom Murdoch said had a big influence on the early years of Cyclone hockey; Mike McCormack, who played four years of hockey and then went on to help coach the Cyclones; Jim Riley, a member of the 1992 national championship team; Bob Johnson, who was a four-year letter winner and Greg Biagini, a three-sport athlete at Iowa State and went on to play minor league baseball. Biagini passed away in 2003 of kidney cancer and will be honored this weekend, as his family will be here.

“We have a busy weekend with football being home and hockey here both Friday and Saturday,” Murdoch said. “It should be a good sports weekend.”