MARQUETTE – Hockey season has begun in Marquette as the Northern Michigan University men’s team is a month into their schedule and the Marquette Royales youth team is almost two months into its campaign.

And the Marquette Iron Rangers will play their first home game in 40 years this weekend, so rink fans have lots of teams to choose from.

But it’s not just men’s teams that have taken the ice so far. The NMU women’s club team season began in late September and the Wildcats are off to a great start. Northern is currently 8-1 after finishing in second place at the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division 2 Showcase in International Falls, Minnesota.

Wildcats coach Sean Parker is pleased with how the team has played so far and also says that this team is better than last year’s team that made the ACHA national tournament.

“The team is looking really good,” he said. “We have three of the top four point getters so far in the country. They are Allison Carlson of Negaunee (37 points), Sierra Rusinek, who’s also from Negaunee (26), and Kendall Turro from the Chicago area (25).

“We’re really strong, we have a good crew from last year and we had a pretty good year with going to nationals. This year, that’s more of an expectation. Last year, we wanted to get there. This year, it is ‘Let’s get back there.'”

This weekend, Michigan State comes to town for a two-game series, with games to be played at 3 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. Sunday. Admission is free at the Berry Events Center.

The weekend’s combatants teams both sit in the top five in the ACHA Division II West Region, Northern second and the Spartans fourth. Parker expects this weekend’s matchup to be competitive and he hopes playing a big-name school like MSU could help bring in a bigger crowd.

“You have two teams in the top five playing this weekend so it should be a good (series),” he said. “We’ve played them before, they are in our conference.

“We played them four times last year and we each won one and tied one. We won the regular-season conference championship and they won the playoff championship.

“It’s cool to play the big-name schools because I think it gets people more interested (who) might not come to a game.

“If you get to play a Michigan State or Notre Dame, who is also in our conference and who we played already this year, I think gives people the ‘wow’ factor. Like, ‘Wow, they are playing a legit school,’ not a team from the middle of nowhere in Canada.

“I think if more people hear that we’re playing Michigan State this weekend, they’ll be more likely to come.”

Parker gets his players by focusing on students who want to come to Northern for college, since the club team isn’t able to offer scholarships.

“Sometimes we get lucky and get girls from Marquette and Negaunee who are going to Northern and want to play hockey,” he said. “Other girls we hear about that are interested in the school first and then you find out that they play hockey. We find out through email and they tell us stuff like ‘We have games in Detroit this weekend. Can you come see us?’

“We try to do the recruiting thing, but being a club team, we can’t really offer anything. You just hope that they are interested in the school and that Northern has their program that they are interested in.”

Parker also says that community support is growing and that they hope to get more people to come to games.

“We get asked ‘When’s your next game?’ and ‘How are you guys doing?’ and what-not,” he said. “We are starting to get an interest. People are talking about it more. We still get people going ‘Wow, Northern has a girls team,’ but it is starting to get noticed more.”

Parker urges fans to come out and says that the games are a fun experience.

“It’s really good hockey,” he said. “It’s fast, it’s competitive. It’s enjoyable. Fans (who) come for the first time will stop me and say that was a lot of fun. So come hang out and support the team.”

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 246. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.