Iowa State hockey has been known for its hard-hitting and high-scoring games for a long time, but there is something most people don’t realize: Men aren’t the only ones who like to score.

ISU has two hockey clubs — one for men, and one for women.

The women’s team was just established last year and is slowly generating interest.

“There had been interest for putting a women’s hockey team together for years. It just took people to put one foot in front of the other,” said Brenda Seggerman, president of the women’s hockey club.

The women’s hockey team is a member of the Midwest Collegiate Women’s Hockey Association, which means the players will face teams from the Wisconsin and Minnesota areas and possibly from Illinois.

The game of women’s hockey follows the same rules as a men’s game except checking is not permitted.

“You can be physical to the puck. You can’t check someone off the puck,” coach Mike Faulise said.

“It’s more of a finesse type of game than physical. There will be physical [incidental] contact since it is a contact sport,” Seggerman said.

Faulise is the volunteer coach for the team and is pursuing a degree in industrial engineering at ISU.

He is a former men’s hockey player from Minnesota. After the team formed last year, one of the women asked him to come to games to referee.

He has volunteered as coach ever since.

Faulise conducts practices Thursdays from 9:30-11:00 p.m. and Sundays from 8-9:30 a.m. at the Ames/ISU Ice Arena.

Matches are played on Friday night from 12 a.m. until 2 a.m. and on Sunday mornings from 10 until noon.

Seggerman said scheduling is a challenge because the team competes for ice time with other squads, such as the men’s club, the local high school and time set aside for the general public to skate.

“We don’t have enough priority to get good ice time. It makes it hard for us to practice,” she said.

“It makes it hard to draw crowd support. We fall on the bottom of the totem pole for ice time. We are the newest team.”

Faulise said once the team becomes more established, it will be able to bid for more ice time. This season the team is without an adviser and is in the process of looking for one via word-of-mouth and e-mail.

“Last year we had an adviser. She was great with helping out with insurance and getting our fair share,” Faulise said.

Additionally, he said to become an adviser, one must like the sport and have enough time to dedicated to the team.

“He [Faulise] will be graduating. I think it would be helpful to have an adviser there the whole year,” Beth Zingula, a club member, said.

The team has already set goals this year.

“[We want] to do as well as we can to let the ISU community know of us [and] to go out and win every game we play,” Seggerman said.

This year’s team consists of over 30 players with one squad, but Faulise said they will be attending tournaments this year, which means they might have A and B squads.

The team is also working on fund-raising projects and is planning a spaghetti dinner in October.

The hockey season runs through March and all the games will be played at the Ames/ISU Ice Arena.

Anyone interested in joining the club is encouraged to attend practices or games or contact Faulise or Seggerman.