Their rink, their fans, their officials.

That's one of the mantras the Penn State Lady Icers keep repeating entering this weekend's ACHA national tournament at Michigan State.

The No. 11 seed Lady Icers face the host Spartans, the No. 2 seed in the tournament and defending national champions, tonight at 7 at the fabled Munn Ice Arena.

"We're expecting a really rough crowd since it is their home rink," junior Stephanie Feyock said. "It's going to be a hostile environment."

The 12-team tournament is broken down into four three-team pools.

They play a round robin schedule and the winner of each pool lands a berth in tomorrow's semifinals.

The finals are Sunday at 5 p.m.

Penn State is in Pool C along with Western Michigan and Michigan State. They play Western Michigan tomorrow in their other pool play game at 10:30 a.m. at Canlan Ice Sports East Lansing.

Penn State and Michigan State did not meet this year, although they have met in past seasons.

"They're a very good skating, very good passing team," Penn State Lady Icers coach Chris Wittemore said.

"They're small, gritty and physical, too."

The Spartans skate four lines regularly and have 10 players with 20 points or more.

Michigan State coach Craig Payment is familiar with most of Penn State's roster from last season.

"We have seen most of the players as we played last season at nationals," Payment said. "We know who the big scorers are and we will try to get a read on their systems as early as possible into the game."

Despite obstacles that may exist, the Lady Icers come into this week's tournament upbeat and optimistic.

"We're going in with the attitude that we can beat these teams if we put in our best effort," junior forward Katie King said. "We need to stick to our game plan and play hard defense."

The tournament schedule gives Penn State one advantage. Michigan State faces off against Western Michigan earlier this afternoon in another pool-play matchup.

Penn State finished last in the eight-team field in a year ago.

Two years ago the Lady Icers finished in one game away from the championship game, finishing in third place.

Another low finish won't be satisfactory, junior Alex McVicker said.

"We're better than last place," she said. "We've definitely been working hard. We think we're ready for this."