In 1994, Quinnipiac hired Rand Pecknold to replace Jim Armstrong as the head coach of its Division II hockey program.
The assistant coach at Connecticut College, Pecknold won the 1990 ECAC South championship as part of a career spent skating as both a forward and a defenseman. He had never been a head coach, but the university hired him to replace the head coach who won 140 games over the previous 14 years with the then-named Braves
Five years later, the program elevated to Division I as members of the newly-formed league under the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s banner, and Pecknold, who had won 19 games in the final year before the elevation, accelerated a process that culminated in 2016 when a 32-win program became No. 1 in the country as members of the highly-touted ECAC league. The renamed Bobcats were national runners-up that year for the second time, but the clear entrenchment of a top ranking offered a capstone for a program now routinely winning 20 games per season.
Six years later, Quinnipiac elevated to the No. 1 national ranking for a second time by beating Harvard and Dartmouth, but this week, the Bobcats offered arguably the greatest tribute to their head coach and the program he constructed when they became the top-ranked team in the nation. They once again defeated Harvard and Dartmouth, but they did so during a time when their head coach and a top scorer were absent from the team for the 2023 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships.
“Our foundation’s been set for years and years,” said defenseman Zach Metsa. “And Rand’s done a great job getting every one of the coaches and players behind it. So when he stepped away, everyone kind of just understood what they had to do and what we needed to do as a team to get ready for the weekend. Some of the things we looked for and prepared for made it as smooth of a transition as we could have asked, and it was awesome seeing everyone step up [in practice].”
The World Juniors are always an interesting subplot to the college hockey season. They occur during the holiday season, and their impact is felt annually when top players and coaches depart several of the strongest NCAA programs. Pecknold had been tabbed back in April of last year to lead this year’s Team USA roster, but his departure meant Quinnipiac entered the game at Holy Cross without its head coach or forward Sam Lipkin, who was chosen to play on the American roster.
The Bobcats won that game handily with a 4-1 result, but the Crusaders held Quinnipiac to a scoreless draw after the first period and took a 1-0 lead in the early stages of the second before Jacob Quillan scored twice. Two power play goals in the third later salted away the team’s 15th win in 18 games, but as the team parted ways for Christmas, it offered a reflection on how to prepare for its return to league play at the start of January.
“[Assistant coaches Joe Dumais and Mike Corbett] were both more than capable of taking on that bigger role,” said forward Joey Cipollone. “They both do a great job with us, not only preparing us for practices but also with player development and making sure we had a really solid game plan going into the weekend. Not much changed in our day-to-day, and it was really exciting for us to see them work, knowing how much work they put into it for us. Going out and putting in a good effort for them was something that we took a lot of pride in doing.”
Quinnipiac had long been the established front runner of ECAC, but this past weekend’s series only added to the layers of perspective for the Bobcats’ upcoming road. The World Juniors didn’t end until Jan. 5, and the first game of the second half of the season was the next day against Dartmouth with Harvard expected to visit M&T Bank Arena the next day. That the two opponents were on opposite ends of college hockey’s statistical rankings didn’t matter, especially since Team USA expected to play for a medal on the tournament’s final day.
Dartmouth had played well against Quinnipiac during the team’s first meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland as part of the Friendship Four, and Harvard had been the preeminent challenger to the Bobcats’ top status in the conference throughout the first half of the season.
Dartmouth head coach Reid Cashman had been on Pecknold’s staff in Canada, and Harvard ranked ninth in the country after pounding Northeastern with an 8-4 win – a clear threat to Quinnipiac’s No. 2 overall ranking.
None of that shook the Bobcats’ confidence, though, and if anything else, they were able to add layers of film preparation by watching some of the best skaters in the world execute their systems. They had one of the best teams in the country, but they chose to enhance their enjoyment of the World Juniors by simply watching their systems at work.
“There were a couple of times where we were watching it and almost critiquing [Team USA],” Metsa laughed. “We know it’s weird for a team to come together and unite and buy into a system so quickly, but I felt like they did a really good job with it. Even hearing their interviews, we heard some of the same terms that we use, things like buy-in, identity, all of that. The message got through.”
“Those guys did a great job with it in a short amount of time,” Cipollone agreed. “I know they had a summer camp with [Pecknold] where he had been pretty hard on them and really dialed into those details, but even with the camp before the tournament, they did a great job with [our system]. You can see where our sayings were there, and the small terms that we use as a group were on some of the shirts and throughout the locker room.
“It makes a big difference in a tournament where there isn’t that much time to prepare and really learn those systems, but the fact that they came together and bought into it was a big reason why they had a lot of success.”
All of this lined up for the weekend and another capstone moment for a team that’s done everything this season short of winning the national championship.
With Pecknold back behind the bench, the Bobcats raced out to a 2-0 lead in the first period on Friday night by scoring two goals in 16 seconds, and Ethan de Jong gave his team a 3-0 lead in the first 100 seconds of the second period, goalie Yaniv Perets recorded his fourth shutout of the season. One night later, another two-goal outburst in the first period paced another 3-0 lead in the second period en route to a 4-1 win that fizzled much of the hype surrounding the top-10 matchup.
Two days later, after Denver split the weekend with Alaska, the Bobcats earned 40 first place votes to become the top-ranked team in the nation.
“We have great leadership,” Cipollone said. “We have a great coaching staff, and we took a big step to know what’s expected. A team like ours sets a standard of making the Frozen Four or winning national championships, and we try to get better every day. We’re focused on the short term, but the day-to-day process has sight of the long term goal. Our culture is great because it’s not just about one coach or one player.
“Everyone’s buying in to it, so even if a guy’s absent, we can do a great job with having other people step up and take bigger roles.”
Now No. 1 in the USCHO poll, Quinnipiac heads to LIU for a single game on Saturday before traveling to Cornell and Colgate next weekend.
