Quinnipiac Bobcats men's ice hockey
NCAA Division I men's ice hockey program in Hamden, Connecticut.
The Quinnipiac Bobcats men's ice hockey team represents Quinnipiac University in NCAA Division I competition. The program is a member of ECAC Hockey and plays its home games at M&T Bank Arena in Hamden, Connecticut.
Quick Facts
- Team name
- Quinnipiac Bobcats
- University
- Quinnipiac University
- Sex
- men's
- Conference
- ECAC Hockey
- Location
- Hamden, Connecticut
- Coach
- Rand Pecknold
- Coach year
- 32nd
- Coach wins
- 693
Facts from the source article.
History
Quinnipiac College first fielded a varsity men's hockey team in the 1975–76 season. After starting out as an independent, the program joined ECAC 3 the next year and spent more than two decades in that third-tier conference, even though the school itself competed at the Division II level for most of that stretch. The Braves left ECAC 3 in 1997, played one season as a Division II independent, and then moved up to Division I as the university made the jump to the top division. Quinnipiac became a founding member of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s hockey division as an affiliate. The team won the MAAC regular-season title in its first year and repeated that feat the next two seasons. In 2002, the Braves claimed their first playoff series victory, beating Mercyhurst 6–4 to win the MAAC playoff championship. That win earned the program its first NCAA tournament bid. In the East Regional held in Worcester, Massachusetts, Quinnipiac faced Cornell and lost 1–6. The team finished the 2001–02 season with a 20–13–5 record, its fourth straight 20-win campaign. In 2003, the MAAC hockey division broke away to form Atlantic Hockey. After two seasons there, Quinnipiac left to join the ECAC, replacing Vermont, and changed its nickname from the Braves to the Bobcats. The university’s pledge to build a new multipurpose arena helped secure the spot over other applicants. The Bobcats moved into the 3,386-seat TD Bank Sports Center (originally called TD Banknorth Sports Center) in 2007.
Rivals
Since joining the ECAC, Quinnipiac’s most intense rivalry has been with Yale. Known as the War on Whitney Avenue, the feud is fueled by the eight-mile stretch of road separating the two campuses in Hamden and New Haven. The rivalry hit its peak in 2013, when both teams sat in the national top ten and held the top two spots in the ECAC standings. The winner of their final regular-season matchup takes home the Heroes Hat, a trophy created to honor first responders from the September 11 attacks. That same season, the Bobcats and Bulldogs faced off for the national title in Pittsburgh on April 13. Quinnipiac had dominated the previous three meetings that year, outscoring Yale 13–3, but fell 4–0 in the championship game. Another key rival is Cornell. The two programs have clashed in five ECAC playoff series since 2007. Quinnipiac won in 2007 at Lynah Rink and again in 2013 and 2016 in Hamden—both years the Bobcats reached the Frozen Four. Cornell took the series in 2011 and 2018, both at Lynah. The most recent postseason meeting came in the 2025 ECAC Semifinals in Lake Placid, where Cornell won 3–2 in overtime. Quinnipiac leads the all-time playoff series 3–2, with three of those series going the full three games. The on-ice action has often been chippy, and the physical play has sparked heated exchanges between head coaches Rand Pecknold and Mike Schafer.
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