By
Chris Suffecool
Arizona Daily Wildcat
All season long, the Arizona club hockey team has been looking for a little respect.
The Icecats can earn that respect this weekend as the American Collegiate Hockey Association national championship tournament comes to the Tucson Convention Center.
UA head coach Leo Golembiewski said Arizona, the only team in the tournament from the West Coast, has been overlooked in the rankings because of the team's location.
The Icecats have been named the No. 7 seed in the tournament despite the fact the team finished the season with a 29-2-1 record with wins over tournament-bound Delaware and Towson.
"Everybody likes to pick on Arizona" Golembiewski said. "The fact that they would say stuff like that is par for the course. If they're not talking about you, then they don't respect you."
The top 12 club teams from Division I ACHA hockey will participate in the tournament. This is the sixth time the UA has hosted the annual tournament, the most of any team.
"(The venue) is one of the best in all of college hockey," Golembiewski said. "Who wouldn't want to come and play in the Tucson Convention Center? Who wouldn't want to come to Arizona in March?"
"It's not only a great venue, but we've done a good job hosting the tournament year after year after year when we've done it."
Among the teams eyeing a national title are Minot State (North Dakota), Penn State, Ohio, Michigan-Dearborn, Iowa State, Delaware, Eastern Michigan, Illinois, Kent State, Towson and Wisconsin-Whitewater.
The tournament uses an unorthodox quadrant system to determine a champion. The teams are broken down into four groups of three teams. Tonight through Saturday, each team will play the other two squads in its quadrant.
The team that wins each quadrant will advance to the semifinals on Sunday, and the two teams left standing will play for the title Monday night at the TCC.
If the Icecats are to advance, they will have to beat No. 10 seed Kent State tomorrow night and No. 2 Penn State on Saturday night. Both games are at 7:30 p.m.
While the Icecats are looking forward to playing PSU on Saturday, senior co-captain Ty Brush said the team won't look past the first game.
"We can't overlook anybody" he said. "We're not going to have the rest that we're used to - that kind of takes away our home-ice advantage a little bit."
"Kent State's played some good teams and they've done well against them," he said.
Penn State has dominated Arizona in previous seasons.
"Penn State owns the senior Icecats," UA senior co-captain Marc Harris said. "We're 0-5 against them. They're starting to get on our nerves a little bit. It's our turn - I mean, it's got to be our turn. We've been waiting four years for it, and now it's here in our barn."
