Forget the 3-2 overtime loss to eventual American Collegiate Hockey Association national champion Penn State that the ISU men’s hockey team suffered in early March.

Now is the time for a new season with one twist: Old-time hockey.

“What does that mean? That means we’re going to be physical,” ISU head coach Alan Murdoch said. “We’re going to be working hard all the time. If you look at our poster, you’ll see a couple of guys without any teeth, and that’s old-time hockey.”

Iowa State, which finished 26-18-2 in American Collegiate Hockey Association play and 10-7-1 in the Central States Collegiate Hockey League, returns 17 players with valuable experience.

The team only lost three seniors from last season: Andrew Murdoch, Jeff Smith and Kevin Koski.

The Cyclones open the season at 7:30 p.m. Thursday with an intrasquad contest at the Ames/ISU Ice Arena. Iowa State starts intermural competition this weekend with games Friday and Saturday against the Minnesota Owls. Both those games have 7:30 p.m. starts.

Iowa State will be without two returning players. Senior forward Phil Hummel will be out in the fall semester on an internship, and senior forward Tony Daniels is focusing on academics.

Leading the Cyclones this season will be junior forward Travis Fast, who was the team’s second leading scorer with 44 points, including 19 goals. Junior forward Travis Denzel tallied 17 goals, including three game-winning shots. Also returning to lead the offensive attack are juniors Mike Moren and Brent Popadych.

In the first few weeks of the fall semester, 54 players have been through the team’s training camp.

“We’re looking for a lot of wins this year,” Denzel said. “We only lost three seniors. We have strong goaltending coming out. We’re looking for a couple of people to fill the spaces that the other guys left.”

In the net, the Cyclones will be choosing starters from nine different players, including redshirt freshman Jason Katz. Katz, who started seven games and was 6-1-0 last season while saving 89.1 percent of shots on goal against him, said having nine goalies competing for starting spots is a good thing for the team.

“Coming into tryouts, it helps me play better when I know that I really have to work for my spot,” Katz said. “There are lot of other goalies that are coming in that are really good, so it’s definitely going to help me play better and boost my game up a little bit.”

One of the things coach Alan Murdoch said he liked about last year was how the team responded in the second half of the season.

“I thought we had a strong second semester last year,” Alan Murdoch said. “Anytime you lose in the national tournament, in overtime, to a team that becomes the eventual winner, that’s a positive.”

Cyclones fans will notice that the team has two new assistant coaches this season. Andrew Hancock and Andrew Murdoch replaced Brian Preston and Brian Wierson.

Hagen said he is expecting some fast, physical play from Iowa State.

Junior forward Scott Hagen said the Cyclones’ loss to Penn State in March has them excited for the new season.

“We had all summer to think about last year with the loss in overtime to Penn State,” said Hagen, who had nine goals and 11 assists last season. “I think it kind of got us geared up all summer long. The guys are looking forward to a good season. We’re pretty pumped up and we’ve all been skating all summer too, so we’re looking forward to it.”

The large roster could help Iowa State maintain an aggressive style of play, Hagen said.

“We need to keep our heads on,” he said.

“That’s one thing with 54 guys this year is that we’ve got four good solid lines that will get a good pace going. It’s going to be some short shifts, high tempo games. We’ll be geared up for it.”