A lot has changed since the last time the Penn State ACHA Division I Icers and the Duquesne Dukes met.

It was Nov. 6, 1998. The Icers were the defending ACHA National Champions and on their way to the title game again. The Dukes proved to be another fly on the Icers' visors as they were defeated, 20-2.

The Icers, under head coach Joe Battista, have been back to the national championship game every year since then, winning four straight titles from 2000 to 2003, most recently finishing as national runners up the past two seasons.

The Dukes, until last year, resembled the same type of team that came into State College in 1998. But last season under new head coach Tim Bosack, the team finished ninth at the ACHA national tournament, its first ACHA postseason appearance in school history. Dukes forward Mike Heath, one of eight imports from British Columbia on the Duquesne roster, was named 2005 ACHA Rookie of the Year.

No. 2 Penn State (5-2-0), defending its position as one of the ACHA's elite, and No. 17 Duquesne (2-3-0), looking to become one of the top-notch teams in the association, face off at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion at 9 tonight and again at 1 p.m. Sunday in Pittsburgh.

The Friday night/Sunday afternoon, home-and-home series is uncharacteristic for the Icers, who normally play games on back-to-back days, usually Friday night and Saturday afternoon in the same arena, home or away.

This weekend, the team will board a bus around 7 a.m. Sunday to head to Duquesne to wrap up the two-game set.

However, it's not just the Sunday game that the team is concerned about. Both of the Icers' losses this season have come on Friday nights. The first came on the road at St. Clair College in Ontario, Canada. The second was last Friday night at home against No. 10 Arizona State.

"It's going to be an interesting weekend the way it's set up," senior assistant captain Brendan Martin said. "We'll see how the team responds. Hopefully we'll

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come out a lot better than we did last Friday night."

After the loss to the Sun Devils, Battista called a private team meeting regarding the team's lack of energy at the outset of the game. The Icers rebounded with a 4-2 win against the same Arizona State team the next afternoon.

In what Battista has called "a rebuilding year," the Icers face the same challenges they have the past two seasons, at the end of which they finished as national runners up.

"We are everyone's national championship game," Battista said. "Everybody gears up for us. We don't get any games off."

The result has been two weekend splits since the Icers' three-win opening weekend, which was highlighted by a 3-2 victory against Division I Robert Morris.

"We need to get away from this win one, lose one. Lose one, win one, I guess is a better way to say it. We don't want to be a team that's going to split games. We need a couple of sweeps," Battista said.

The current roster of Icers has never played against Duquesne, something goalie Chris Matteo says could work in Penn State's advantage tonight and Sunday.

"We haven't seen them in a couple of years, so we can just focus on our game. We don't have any preconceived notions of what they're like coming in," Matteo said. "We can just focus on our game, focus on our positives. I don't know if we've been doing that the last couple games."