There won’t be a lot of love on the ice this weekend at the Illinois Ice Arena.

No. 2 Ohio (11-1-0), coming off its first loss of the year last week to Liberty, travels to Champaign to face No. 8 Illinois (10-3-2) on Friday and Saturday. Ohio has won four national championships in the past 21 years, while Illinois has won two national championships in the past seven.

The Illini players see these games as the biggest of the year, as they prepare to face a team they don’t care for one bit.

“The word that comes to mind is rivalry,” forward Austin Bostock said. “I absolutely hate all those guys … you love to play against them because it’s going to be so intense.” Although head coach Nick Fabbrini said Ohio was the Illini’s biggest rival when he was playing, the hatred was renewed last year when the Bobcats knocked Illinois out of the first round of the national tournament.

Ohio is in unfamiliar territory heading into this weekend, as it had held the coveted No. 1 ranking the past four weeks. Playing against a mediocre Liberty team (8-5-2), Ohio lost last Saturday 4-3 on a go-ahead goal with just over a minute to play.

The Bobcats had shown signs of vulnerability leading up the loss. Before Saturday’s game, four of their last five games were decided by one goal.

Still, Ohio is the No. 2 team in the country.

“I think it’s a good thing we’re playing such a high-ranked opponent,” Fabbrini said. “We seem to play to the level of the teams that we’re playing. We have a tendency to relax on this team.”

Last weekend in a series at Iowa State, after dominating the first game 6-4, Illinois came out flat on Saturday and was beaten soundly 5-3.

The theme of those games, as well as the season thus far, has been the subpar play in the defensive zone for Illinois. Fortunately, defenseman Anthony Carlsen will be back from a groin injury, although defenseman Ben Burbridge is still out with post-concussion symptoms.

Mistakes in the defensive zone allowed Iowa State to keep the game close on Friday and allowed the Cyclones to pull away on Saturday.

“I think you can point to one of our mistakes on each of Iowa State’s goals last weekend that led to them scoring,” Fabbrini said. “It wasn’t plays they created; it was something we gave them.”

The defensive zone will have to be on-par this weekend, as Ohio averages just under five goals a game this year. Bostock said these matchups are always extra-physical, although it just comes with the tension of the matchup.

“Ohio, historically, takes runs at guys and tries to finish (its) checks,” Bostock said. “But on an ice size this big, you can’t really run out of position to finish a hit because it’ll take you out of your game.”

Illinois will need to utilize any advantage it can get in order to pull off the upset this weekend.

Stephen can be reached at [email protected] and @steve_bourbon.