Starting at college can be a scary experience. But freshman Erik Hudson faces the added pressure of having joined the hockey team in the middle of the season.

The goalie joined the hockey team when practice started up again after winter break, and within a couple of series, he took over the starting role.

Hudson was born in Spokane, Wash., where he learned to skate at the age of five. Then, at seven, Hudson started playing hockey as a forward in the minor leagues. After a year at forward, he decided he wanted to try being a goalie, and he never went back.

When he was 14, he moved to Wilcox, Saskatchewan, where he played high school hockey for Athol Murray College of Notre Dame. It was here that he developed his butterfly goaltending style.

“As I grew up, I watched other goalies older than me play, then as I moved out west to Canada, I adapted a hybrid Canadian style of goaltending from my goalie coach,” Hudson said. “A lot of the teams out there teach the same thing – just be big, take the angles, and just play big – that’s the biggest thing about goaltending nowadays, just be big and be positioned well.”

Over the next three years, Hudson traveled around British Columbia playing for four different junior league teams.

During this time, Hudson began catching the eyes of college scouts – not only Cyclone Hockey scouts, but scouts from NCAA Division I programs.

“I was supposed to go to [Clarkson University] for a visit, but my grades weren’t really up to par in high school, playing hockey at the same time,” Hudson said. “I was young and really didn’t think schooling was very important at the time – turns out it is. The same thing happened with Quinnipiac.”

Hudson continued playing hockey in the junior leagues in Canada. Then, earlier this year, Hudson got traded from the Burnaby Express to the Maritime League, which has teams in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

“I really didn’t want to go all the way up to the Maritime. I am 21 now – I was 20 at the time when I came here – and I just decided it was time to start my schooling and see where my hockey career takes me,” Hudson said.

The problem was the Cyclones already had three goalies.

“First of all, all of our goaltenders, Christian [Johansson] and Jimmy [Stenson], are great guys,” Hudson said. “I couldn’t say one bad thing about them. Obviously, coming in here we had [Adam] Chudnofsky here before, he is not here anymore, we can’t really carry four goalies – so there is a lot of tension there. It is hard to be that guy that comes in and is the new guy on the team and has to earn respect from the team and other goaltenders.”

But Hudson was able to earn the players’ respect quickly on the ice.

“We started off with that junior exhibition series, and we keep a lot of statistics, and we thought that would be a good test,” said coach Al Murdoch. “Right away, right out of the box, his stats were solid and we like to have a goaltender that has less than three goals against – the closer to two the better. We like to have a goalie whose save percentage is above 90 percent. I think right now he is around 91 percent. [Actual figures: 90.97 percent, 2.73 average goals against – Ed.] So he came right out of the blocks the first couple of games, and we said, ‘Okay, lets take a look at a couple more.’ . he picked up another couple of wins. So along comes Illinois, an undefeated team, and he took it the distance there, into overtime both games, and goaltending had a lot to do with it. All the sudden our defense is playing with a lot more confidence.”

Although Hudson has the starting job, he was careful to point out that it isn’t necessarily his for good.

“I think you have to run with the hot guy, whether or not the other guy is just as good,” Hudson said. “You have to get that starting goalie in a rhythm, but it can shift just as quickly as I got it. It can shift to whoever wants the job. If I open the door for anybody, they will jump right in there and take it, and that is the cool thing about goaltending – everyone is pushing for that job and come game day, whoever is playing well is going to get it.”

Regardless of who is starting, the Cyclones are better with Hudson on it.

“I think, with Johansson and Hudson on the team, it has given us a lot more confidence,” said sophomore defenseman Brent Cornelius. “It is kind of like last year when we had Johansson and [Trent] Baker. Baker was a senior, and he had some experience, so having those two guys was good because if one didn’t have a good game, the other one could come in and be great.”

Not only has he helped the Cyclones solidify their goaltending, Hudson has also helped the offense in practice. Each goalie brings a different style and skill set to the ice, and going against a variety of these in practice is great preparation for games.

“I think it’s been great,” Cornelius said. “It’s good to get different looks when you’re going down and shooting on a goalie. Our goaltending core is pretty solid right now, and having him on the team gives a few more opportunities and options when you are trying to score, because he is obviously a different goalie than [Johansson] is, and he is different than Stenson. Stenson is one of the guys who can play the puck, Johansson is more of a technical goalie and Hudson is a butterfly goalie who just plays the angles.”

Of all the freshmen starting at Iowa State in the middle of the year, Hudson has endured his stresses to become one of the most successful.