Shawnee ? The hockey players at Kansas University are more than athletes. They’re missionaries from a frozen land.

Hockey, after all, summons as much devotion from its players and fans as many religions. But there’s not much faith — or even awareness — elsewhere in Jayhawk Country.

“We have a slogan that says, ‘Yes, KU has a hockey team,'” said Geoff Knight, a left wing and team president. “Because every time we talk about the team, people say, ‘I didn’t know.'”

Hockey is a club sport at KU, so it doesn’t get the attention or funding of varsity sports. Plus, the team practices and plays its games at Ice Sports Arena in Shawnee, a half-hour drive from campus.

And, well, it’s hockey.

“Hockey’s not that big in Kansas — not like Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa,” observed Jeff Leibbrandt, a KU sophomore who attended his first collegiate hockey game Friday night, a Jayhawk victory over Iowa State University.

But there’s a lot to love about KU hockey:

• The high scoring. The Jayhawks scored 17 goals in the two ISU games last weekend.
• The rivalries. The annual series with Mizzou is the high point of the schedule. Roughly 300 fans attended last year’s season-ending game with the Tigers, Knight said.
• The hockey. Who doesn’t love sitting in a frigid arena for a couple of hours, listening to the sharp slap of sticks smacking pucks and watching well padded players slam each other into the boards?

If more people only knew about KU hockey, players believe, converts would start streaming through the church — er, make that arena — doors.

“The hockey we play is really good hockey,” said Timon Veach, a senior from Pittsburgh, Pa. “People in the area should know the team exists.”

6Sports video: No ice rink? No problem for KU hockey Richard Gallaway, who played for KU Hockey in 1982, talks about old times Jeff Leibbrandt, KU student, talks about coming to his first hockey game Bryan Luhman, KU Hockey coach, talks about the origins of the team Photo gallery: Ice hockey at KU KU Hockey

A struggle

Hockey has had an on-again, off-again foothold in Lawrence for years.

“KU’s hockey team actually goes (way) back,” Knight said. “There’s been several incarnations of the team, going back a ways. Even back to the seventies.”

Richard Gallaway, a Leavenworth financial analyst who attended Friday’s game, said he was on one of those early club teams, in 1982.

“We kind of got our butts waxed,” Gallaway said. “But it was fun, because you were out there playing for the love of the game. There was no pressure on it.”

The newest version of the team was started seven years ago. Bryan Luhman, now KU’s coach, helped start the team as a player.

Since then, the team has grown from essentially an intramural enterprise — no-contact men’s league hockey — to an intercollegiate team that spars with other members of Division Two in the American Collegiate Hockey Assn., a motley group of schools that also can’t or won’t raise their teams to NCAA status. Opponents this year include Texas Tech, Southern Illinois and Bradley University.

“It’s grown drastically,” Luhman said.

The two dozen players on KU’s roster come mostly from hockey hotbeds like Minnesota, St. Louis and Canada, though there are five Kansans on the roster.

“Since I’m Canadian, it’s kind of our job to play hockey,” said Knight, a Toronto native.

Recruiting is difficult.

“It’s mainly through e-mail,” Knight said. “We don’t have money to send scouts to Minnesota … usually it’s players who are coming to KU anyway and are looking for a chance to play.”

But the biggest struggle for the team is money for playing and practice time at Ice Sports Arena, for equipment, and for travel.

The club will receive $2,000 this year from KU Recreation Services. The team also raises money through game ticket sales — $5 for nonstudents — and through sales of hats, hoodies and T-shirts emblazoned with “Kansas Hockey.”

To supplement that, players pay $700 a year to participate, and also shell out cash for travel and equipment expenses.

“When you put it all together, I’ll pay upwards of $1,500, $2,000 to play hockey this year,” Knight said.

And yes, he thinks it’s worth it.

“I guess the harsh reality is that hockey is an expensive sport,” Knight said. “For some of us, it’s our last chance to play competitive hockey.”

High-scoring game

The 50 or so fans who attended Friday’s game with Iowa State were made up largely of friends and family of Jayhawks players.

Max Merrill, a 1954 KU grad from Lenexa, was on hand with his family — because a friend of his granddaughter plays for ISU.

“I did not know that they had a hockey team,” Merrill said of his alma mater. “I love it. It’s exciting, very fast. I think they’re very good.”

It didn’t look that way early. KU went up 1-0 on a goal from David Knight, Geoff’s brother, with 13:15 left in the first 20-minute period. But the Cyclones — physically bigger and bullying the Jayhawks on the boards — scored three goals of their own before the break.

KU tied the game at 4 in the second period. And in the third period, depth won out; the Jayhawks had more than 20 players, compared to 14 for Iowa State.

KU scored three goals in the final period to take the win. Six different players scored for the Jayhawks.

By the time the final buzzer sounded, though, only about two dozen fans were left.

That’s better than the old days, Gallaway said.

“We would play in front of crowds of five people,” he said. “And it would happen to be friends, or parents, or people who could drive to the game.”

But the remaining fans are hoping for better.

“I truly feel that — especially when the college kids are here, the enthusiasm from the stands and from the students, I think, flows over to the rink,” said Holly Wilson, mother of KU senior defenseman Kyle Wilson. “And you certainly see a different level of play when there’s fans around.”

The future

If you build it, Knight believes, they will come.

“Our theory is that hockey in Lawrence, no one’s really asking for it,” Knight said. “No one’s saying, ‘Why isn’t there a hockey team in Lawrence?’ But once there would be a rink and/or a team, they’d say, ‘Wow, this is really awesome.'”

So the goal, he said, was to build a rink in Lawrence, then gain status as a NCAA-level varsity sport.

“Those two go kind of hand-in-hand, actually,” Knight said.

KU athletic director Lew Perkins oversaw the elevation of hockey to a varsity sport when he was at Connecticut. It might not be as easy to do here.

“We need to concentrate on getting this department into excellent financial shape so we can address and support the sports we have now before we think about adding new sports,” said Jim Marchiony, KU assistant AD.

The hockey Jayhawks, though, are missionaries. They know their mission is a struggle. But they continue to believe that Kansas can be a Promised Land.

“We’d like to get people out to the games, see what kind of hockey can be played in Kansas,” coach Luhman said. “It’s kind of an unknown sport in Kansas — (we’re) trying to grow it a little more, see what can happen after that.”