Imagine you’re skating against the ISU hockey team. You carry the puck up ice and break into the attack zone. The puck gets lost in your skates and you tilt your head down to find it. You look up just in time to….WHAM!

29-year-old DeHang Sun, the Cyclone hockey team’s newest addition, has just crashed into you; all seven feet, 270 pounds of him. The world’s largest defenseman has come to Ames to lace up his skates for ISU this season.

“We’re very excited about his arrival,” ISU hockey head coach Al Murdoch said.

“We already have a group of quality players complemented by a quality coaching staff. The addition of DeHang just makes us even better.”

However, the Cyclones will have to wait to reap the benefits of the Chinese behemoth’s abilities and experience. DeHang’s skates and equipment didn’t make the trip with him to the United States.

“The government took them,” DeHang said. “In China, the government controls everything.”

It seems the Chinese government was less than thrilled about the idea of DeHang’s departure, so the confiscated his gear.

Despite the inconvenience, DeHang is happy to be here.

After playing hockey for the past 14 years in China, a portion of which was spent as a member of the Chinese national team that traveled to Europe to play teams from France, Norway, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands, DeHang decided that he was tired of playing the style of hockey that dominates European and Asian competition.

“Speed is the emphasis in Asian and European hockey,” DeHang said. “Over there you play the puck and there is less hitting. I like to hit.”

According to DeHang, that’s the strongest part of his game, hitting opposing forwards — hard.

So what’s a humongous Chinese hockey player who likes to crush his opponents to do?

Come to the U.S. and play North American style hockey.

Why Ames and ISU? Simple. Former ISU great, now assistant coach An Fu Wang was also a teammate of DeHang’s from the Chinese national team.

“I’m the only one he knows in this country,” An Fu said. “So he came to stay with me.”

Both DeHang and An Fu are natives of Harbin, China, which further explains the closeness of their relationship and also helps explain why DeHang missed ISU training camp two weeks ago.

Harbin just happens to be the ice sculpture capital of Asia. DeHang needed some money to cover his travel expenses so he decided to do the other thing he excels at, ice sculpting.

“In Harbin, ice sculpting is a very big deal,” DeHang said.

“We have an ice sculpting festival in January back in Harbin,” An Fu said. “At least a million people come from all over the world to take part.”

His Florida ice sculpting gigs completed, he finally arrived in Ames last week after weeks of anticipation among the ISU hockey community.

“He just needs to get back into condition,” An Fu said. “He hasn’t skated for over a month because he has no skates.”

If anybody out there happens to be a hockey player with size 13 skates that they don’t mind parting with, run down to the Peking Palace on Lincoln Way and ask for DeHang. You can’t miss him.