Jan. 28, 2007
By Elliot Olshansky
CSTV.com
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ELLIOT OLSHANSKY
Elliot is CSTV.com's hockey editor and runs his Rink Rat hockey blog on CSTV.com. |
Of course, in many ways, the statement was made before a single goal was scored.
While the chants of, "THIS IS OUR HOUSE!" and "BOBCATS LIVE HERE!" didn't rise from the student section until the blowout was already in progress, every aspect of the opening of the TD Banknorth Sports Center told the same story.
The Bobcats are here, and they mean business.
9,744 cubic yards of concrete, 2,470 tons of steel, 13,300 square feet of glass and 2,510 gallons of paint were used in the construction of the $52 million facility, which houses basketball and hockey in two separate arenas. A statue of a bobcat, eight feet tall and 14 feet long, sits on a 28-ton boulder outside the entrance. And, when it was all done, New York Rangers anthem singer John Amirante lent his voice to the opening and hockey legend Gordie Howe was on hand to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff.
"It was good to have my first-ever face-off win in four years," joked senior defenseman Reid Cashman, "pad my stats a bit, and then to have someone like Gordie Howe, and to be able to shake his hand, and have him talk to us was a special moment for me and the entire team."
When Cashman arrived on campus in Hamden in the fall of 2003, rebuffing the interest of powerhouse programs that wanted him to play another year of junior hockey before matriculating, he came to a team that played in Atlantic Hockey, one of college hockey's smaller conferences, took buses from campus to a community rink in nearby Northford for practices and games, and was generally a long way away from what the Minnesota native could have had if he'd waited one more year.
Now, however, Cashman is a former finalist for the Hobey Baker Award and a likely hot commodity among NHL teams as an undrafted free agent. He and his Bobcat teammates have spent much of the season in the USCHO.com/CSTV Top 20, are one of the leading teams in the ECAC Hockey League - which includes former NCAA championship programs Harvard, Cornell and
"It was an emotional ride today," Cashman said, "because it has been four years, and the program has just evolved over those four years, whether it was the league we're playing in, or now this new building, or a national ranking, it's an exciting time for this university and this team, and I was happy we could get a win and do it the right way."
Getting the win was certainly one of the biggest things for head coach Rand Pecknold.
"It's a big relief," Pecknold said. "It's been a great ride to get to this point. There certainly was a lot of buildup, and for me, I was excited for the game, but I was almost more excited to get to Monday's practice with a win under our belts and be able to move forward from here."
Moving forward has been a major theme in Pecknold's tenure with the Bobcats, making the transition from a non-scholarship program at a Division III institution to a low-level Division I program, and then on to a member of one of Division I's top conferences, and now a top contender in that conference.
"I've been real lucky," Pecknold said. "In my 13 years here, we seem to always be in transition. We started out in D-III, and then D-I, and then a couple of years ago, we moved to the ECAC, and now we're actually doing pretty well in the ECAC, and that's another transition point."
"I think the coaching staff has done a great job," ECACHL commissioner Steve Hagwell said. "I think a lot of people may have underestimated them a little bit, because when I look back at the games they've played and the games they were in outside of the league when they were in the MAAC and Atlantic Hockey, and even in our league last year, they were very competitive, and so they've gotten some bounces this year that maybe last year, in our league, they didn't get."
As for the facility, Hagwell said, "This is a great testament to the leadership and the vision of Quinnipiac, led by President [John] Leahy. They came and made their presentation, said they were going to have a building, and they carried through. We said January 2007, they met the deadline, the building is fantastic, and it's a great addition to the league, and certainly the institution."
For athletic director Jack McDonald, the reality of that addition to his institution hits hard.
"I could not ever imagine what has happened today, yesterday, and frankly, the last two years," McDonald said. "In 1995, when I came here, if you said that on January 28, 2007, we'd be in a brand new, state-of-the-art facility with over 3,000 people in the building, great game against Holy Cross with ECAC banners hanging, I would have said that this could not happen, and it did."
Of course, it's not like taking an athletic program forward is anything new to McDonald. As the athletic director at the University of Denver and assistant athletic director for marketing at his alma mater, Boston College (where he also ran and coached track), McDonald had many similar experiences that helped pave the way for his work at Quinnipiac.
"I hired George Gwozdecky," McDonald said, "and he's won two national championships. We went from Division II to Division I at
One thing McDonald learned was to keep proper perspective in moving a program forward, and not to bite off too much at once.
Speaking of the progress Quinnipiac has made, McDonald said, "What I think is really neat is that it happened because of nice, good steps, not big steps. Little things happened: getting the staff in place, good coaches, supporting them the way we could, giving them the resources they needed, making them aware of student-athlete welfare and NCAA rules, and here we are today."
Where the Bobcats are also includes a growing lacrosse program, recently accepted into the Great Western Lacrosse League, which was represented in the 2006 NCAA tournament by McDonald's old program at
For McDonald, the move to the GWLL was a natural one in building Quinnipiac's athletic program the way he helped move
"The world of college hockey and the world of college lacrosse are very much the same," McDonald said. "They're two of the only revenue-producing sports in all of Division I athletics, outside of men's basketball. There's only 60 or so programs. They have 16 in the NCAA tournament. There's incredible change in lacrosse, so there's a lot going on."
Still, in the midst of all this change, McDonald isn't about to lose perspective. "If we never have an incredible benchmark moment again," McDonald said, "that's OK. This is higher education, and we're going to maintain that mission. Quick success sometimes leads to quick failure, and we don't want that."
Of course, stagnation is hardly on the agenda.
"One of my favorite lines in this business is, `Even if you're on the right track, if you just stand there, you'll get run over,'" McDonald said. "As I would say as a track coach, once you start looking over your shoulder, you're in trouble."
Pecknold clearly takes his boss's words to heart, and is ready to make the most of his team's new digs. He's certainly been working on it already.
"Certainly the facility helps us with recruiting," Pecknold said. "Some of the kids, our freshmen and sophomores, knew this building was coming, and certainly would not have committed to
Wong, who leads the ECACHL in goals with 17 and is second in total points with 29, has certainly made an impact in his freshman year, but Pecknold knows that there is more to be done.
"We've certainly won some battles," Pecknold said, "but if we want to eventually be a Top 20 team, year in and year out, we're going to have to go head to head with the
"This certainly isn't the pinnacle for us. I don't know if we've completely arrived on the college hockey scene. Obviously, we've done well, but we want to try to be a Top 20 team, year in and year out. I still think we have some work to do to keep improving and get better."
Over the course of his career at Quinnipiac, Pecknold has certainly shown a willingness to do the work, and now he has the tools he needs to take the next step. The unveiling of those tools has been a proud moment for the Quinnipiac program, which may yet lead to more proud moments in the future.
"I sat in the stands on Thursday," McDonald said, "watching Rand practice, and really got a little emotional, thinking that I was at an NCAA Tournament practice [in 2002], wishing that someday I had a building like this, and suddenly it came upon me that this is our building. I lost it a little bit. This is unbelievable."
Unbelievable though it may be, it's now a fact, not to mention a slogan.
"Bobcats Live Here."
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