[media-credit id=2200 align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]Summer may just be starting, but hockey fans should already be getting excited for winter.

On Friday, the Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team released its entire 2018-19 schedule, almost three months after its 2017-18 campaign ended at the hands of Cornell University in the ECAC Hockey quarterfinals.

Quinnipiac will start with a preseason exhibition game against University of Prince Edward Island on Oct. 6 at home. The team will travel to Vermont for its season opener on Saturday, Oct. 13 and then welcome in-state opponent UConn to the People’s United Center for its home opener on Tuesday, Oct. 16.

Continuing on with out-of-conference opponents, Quinnipiac will host Boston College on Oct. 19, a team that Quinnipiac tied 2-2 last year. The Bobcats will then play a home-and-home against American International College the following weekend on Oct. 26 and 27.

ECAC Hockey play begins on Nov. 2, as Quinnipiac plays a string of six conference games. The Bobcats will head north to play Harvard and then Dartmouth on Nov. 2 and 3, host RPI and Union on the next weekend of Nov. 9 and 10, then finish up that stretch at Cornell and Colgate on Nov. 16 and 17.

Quinnipiac will finish before the holiday break with games at Maine (Nov. 23 and 24), a home-and-home series with Princeton (Nov. 30 and Dec. 1) and finally, another home-and-home against UMass Amherst (Dec. 7 and 8).

After the break, Quinnipiac will play its final game of 2018 at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island in the second of three matchups against Colgate. That game will take place on Dec. 29.

The 2019 year will kick off with the same opponent that the Bobcats finished 2018 with in Colgate. Quinnipiac will play Colgate and Cornell on Jan. 4 and 5 in Hamden, and then will also host Dartmouth and Harvard the next weekend as well.

Quinnipiac squares off with its final out-of-conference opponents on Jan. 19 and 22, with a game at Boston University and then at home against Holy Cross.

The team will then close out its season with ten ECAC Hockey matchups, going to New York to play Clarkson and St. Lawrence on Feb. 1 and 2, then hosting rival Yale and Brown the next weekend.

The game against Yale will be on Feb. 8 in the first game of the Battle of Whitney Ave. The two teams split the season series last year, with Quinnipiac taking the first game 3-0, then Yale defeating the Bobcats 3-2. However, Quinnipiac won the most important matchup that came in the ECAC Hockey opening round, when it swept its rival in a best-of-3 series.

Quinnipiac will finish that stretch of conference games by traveling to Union and RPI for Feb. 15 and 16, hosting St. Lawrence and Clarkson the weekend after and then finishing up the season with a game at Brown and their final matchup against Yale on March 2, which concludes both the rivalry series and the season.  

With the regular season finished, Quinnipiac will hope to have placed high enough for the ECAC Hockey tournament, which will start on March 8 with the opening rounds and will run all the way until the semifinals and finals at Lake Placid, New York on March 22 and 23.

120 days until puck drop.
35 games.
17 at home.
1 common goal.

Winter is coming.

Schedule: https://t.co/ZGmiKBOTAC pic.twitter.com/UlvpWVgsBY

— Quinnipiac Men's Ice Hockey (@QU_MIH) June 8, 2018

In 2016, Quinnipiac won the ECAC Hockey tournament with a 4-1 victory over Harvard, but Harvard got its revenge in 2017 when they defeated Quinnipiac in the semifinals. The Bobcats missed a trip to Lake Placid last season after being bounced in the quarterfinals by Cornell.

After Quinnipiac’s dismal season last year with its 16-18-4 record and early exit of the ECAC Hockey playoffs, the team will look to come back stronger this year. With a date set for their turnaround season to begin, the Bobcats now have their eyes on Oct. 13.