It may not be springtime, but Cyclone Hockey is hoping to do some cleaning this weekend with a sweep.

The Cyclones (1-1), ranked sixth in the nation by the American Collegiate Hockey Association, can’t afford anything less than a sweep this weekend after they split last weekend’s series against a Division II Missouri team.

The Cyclones play unranked North Dakota State at 7:30 p.m Friday and 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Ames/ISU Ice Arena. The Cyclones have one advantage going in to this weekend that they didn’t have last weekend – practice.

The Cyclones played last weekend’s games without ever practicing as a team, and it showed in their loss. This week, however, it had four practices and the chance to get on the ice to work some things out.

“We had to spend some time on rules and officiating and what’s being called and why it’s being called, and we didn’t have

the opportunity to do that,” said coach Al Murdoch.

New rule changes resulted in an unheard of 73 penalties during the weekend and played a large role in the Cyclones loss. The team is using practice as a time to adjust to the new rules.

“If there is any contact that we would consider a penalty in practice, there is going to be a little bit of repercussions,” junior Allen Raushel said. “Either sit-ups, push-ups or skating, just to get these guys into the habit that this is unacceptable and you can’t do it anymore.”

A minimization of penalties will be vital for a Cyclone team that was forced into penalty kill situations numerous times Saturday night. The team escaped Saturday with a 7-4 win but gave up all four goals defending the power play.

“We need to get our power-play unit set,” Raushel said. “We basically just need to get the system down and everybody needs to be on the same page with that because the more we work together, the better our penalty kill is going to be.”

The freshmen were thrown into the fire last weekend having never played or practiced at the college level, but things should get smoother this weekend in all areas of the game as they got valuable practice this week.

“It’s a lot different because the guys are bigger, the guys are faster, the guys are stronger,” freshman Shane Mytnik said. “[Practice] is working good because we’re working a lot on our power-play penalty kill and we’re doing some hitting drills to get us used the bigger hits.”