CLAIRE C. LAURENCE/Arizona Daily Wildcat The Icers, Arizona's women's club hockey team, perform drills in preparation for their next matchup. The Icers face the Tucson Chilly Peppers, a local club team, this Saturday and Sunday at Gateway Ice Center in Tucson.

Fifth-year club brings women's hockey to UA

With a pair of stellar performances during the last two Olympic Winter Games, the U.S. women's ice hockey team managed to put its sport on the national map.

That success has resonated down to Tucson and the UA, which now features its own women's club hockey team, the Arizona Icers.

Though the team, founded in 1999, has a winning record of 2-1 in its 2003-2004 season, Icers' goalie coach Jon Beaudry said the team has so many newcomers this season that finishing the regular season with a winning record would be a surprise.

"In our mind, this is a development year, so it's a time when we're investing in the team and just putting our best players out there. And not giving everyone a chance to progress is a mistake," Beaudry said. "We want to rotate everyone in and get everyone experienced and (let them) get to play."

More than half of this year's team is first-year Icers. Beaudry, who was persuaded by his hockey-playing wife to become involved in coaching women's hockey, said that type of thing must be anticipated.

"In high school or college, you get that rotation of players," he said. "Sometimes you get an infusion of talent, and other times you get an infusion of potential."

The Icers are coming off a split against Arizona State three weeks ago at Gateway Ice Center, where all their home games are played. Arizona took the first game, 2-1, but fell in game two, 5-2, after giving up three goals in the third period.

"Had we played our first two lines the entire time, we definitely would have won the game," Beaudry said.

But the Icers received more bad news that weekend than just falling to their archrivals. The team's star player, Ashley Swanson, who scored two goals and notched a pair of assists in the weekend series, broke her collarbone in the second game. The injury was expected to sideline Swanson for four to six weeks, meaning she will unlikely return to the ice in time for this weekend's pair of matchups against the Chilly Peppers, a Tucson club team.

The Wildcats will look to a veteran and a newcomer to pick up the slack in Swanson's absence.

Arizona's Betsy Harlow has two goals and two assists on the season, including the game-winning goal with 30 seconds remaining in the Icers' first game against Arizona State.

Harlow, an Italian studies sophomore, said the goal wasn't her first game winner, but said it was a special one.

"That one was really awesome because it was against ASU, and I can't stand them," she said. "They broke my friend's collarbone, so they're going down next time."

Harlow - and Swanson - will have a chance at revenge Feb. 13 at Gateway when ASU heads back to town.

Meanwhile, defender Lisa Walsh may be the most rabid member of the team. Just a freshman, Walsh is always on the lookout to knock over opponents in a league in which contact is disallowed.

"You can't play without hitting," explained Walsh, a journalism major who has already tallied an assist in just three games as an Icer. But Walsh contended that the illegality of hitting makes the team better.

"I think it makes us play harder. (It requires) more skill," she said.

Walsh, who attended Mesa High School and played nine years of club hockey in Mesa and Chandler, couldn't resist getting in a knock against her rivals in Tempe.

"If I don't get more "A"s, I'm gonna (have to) go to ASU soon," she joked.

Harlow summed up why she loves being a member of one of the least-known club teams on campus.

"It's a great gaggle of girls," Harlow said. "It's a lot of fun, we all get along, and I love hockey."

Walsh's explanation was even more succinct.

"If I'm not on the ice, I'm not happy," she said.