In the middle of April, several weeks after Quinnipiac men’s hockey fell to Boston College in the NCAA Tournament, senior defenseman Davis Pennington stepped into a room at M&T Bank Arena to make a decision about his future.
It wasn’t quite as life-defining as the choice he made seven years earlier, committing to play college hockey at Nebraska Omaha. Nor was it on par with the one he made just a year previous, opting to transfer 1,300 miles east to Quinnipiac. But it was the team’s annual fitting day, and the Bobcats were changing their primary equipment sponsor from CCM to Bauer, so for the first time since his freshman season at Omaha, Pennington had to choose a new stick.
“A lot of guys already know (what they want) so those guys just kind of walk in,” he said. “But for me, I had to find something different. I had a pretty good year last year so I kind of wanted it to be as similar as possible.”
Pennington sat down with a regional Bauer representative and Alex Whitman, Quinnipiac’s head equipment manager, to talk through his options.
“They bring in their entire bag of sticks, and it has every flex, every shaft shape, every curve,” Whitman said. “And then they’ll have a grip wheel where it’s like a massive key ring that has every different kind of grip you can get on your stick, so the guys know exactly what they’re getting.”
Every equipment brand hosts fitting days for the schools they partner with. A regional representative for the company travels to the school with all of its high quality gear. If a player needs their foot rescanned for new skates, this is the time for it. If they want to try a new stick, a new helmet, new shoulder pads, new gloves — it’s all laid out in front of them.
“You grow up dreaming of a situation like that, where you can just try a bunch of stuff,” Pennington said. “Bauer was cool because they have a bunch of custom pro curves, so you can see what (David) Pastrnak uses, what (Patrick) Kane uses. So that’s exciting too.”
Most fitting days see few adjustments, players simply moving to the newest model in a line of gear they’re used to or perhaps adopting a slightly different curve. But as Quinnipiac prepared to don Bauer as its primary gear sponsor for the first time since the 2016-17 season, every name on the Bobcats’ rosters had to make some kind of adjustment.
“We all know hockey players are creatures of habit,” Whitman said. “They don’t really like to change that much. But if they do, they know what their options are, and they can pick from whatever they want.”
In his search, Pennington settled on Bauer’s Nexus Tracer, the newest release in its Nexus line.
Except, he didn’t. His sticks are just wrapped to look like the Tracer. They’re actually the Nexus 2N Pro XL, which originally released in 2018.
He’s not alone. Seven players on Quinnipiac’s men’s roster play with what looks like the Tracer. Only two are actually using it. Four are in the 2N Pro XL and one (sophomore defenseman Chase Ramsay), is using the Bauer Supreme Ultrasonic.
The reason why comes down to feel. Nexus sticks feature a mid kick point (where the stick flexes), which is often favored by defensemen because it offers a balance between power and control.
But in 2020, Bauer shifted to a five-sided shaft for new Nexus releases, a change that didn’t resonate with many players.
“Not everyone is sold on it,” Whitman said.
The 2N Pro XL is the last Nexus model released before the change, making it the natural successor for players like Pennington, who switched from a Tacks stick, CCM’s mid-kick point line.
“The last time I used Bauer, that’s what I used,” Pennington said. “I’m kind of a creature of habit, so I didn’t want to switch too much.”
So wrapping sticks is the healthy middle ground between athlete and brand. Players feel comfortable using an older model stick, sponsors want to advertise their top-of-the-line releases.
“We’re not really in the business of making guys uncomfortable with what they’re using,” Whitman said.
That sentiment also applies to the brand of gear players use. While Bauer may be Quinnipiac’s primary equipment provider, there’s a clause in its contract with the university that allows for a specific number of players in non-Bauer gear.
Men’s sophomore forward Andon Cerbone and women’s freshman forward Bryn Prier both use CCM sticks, and Cerbone is one of seven players between the two programs to wear CCM skates.
“I’ve just always used CCM sticks, even when I played in the USHL, which is a Bauer league,” Cerbone said. “I felt like more so in my head as superstition that I like the CCM sticks over (Bauer). Then for skates, same thing: I’ve always worn CCM skates. When I was little I used to get — they call them Bauer bumps — in my foot, so that was pretty uncomfortable, so I just stuck with CCM skates.”
That type of clause is common in the NCAA. Last season, as Quinnipiac was still under contract with CCM, forward Sam Lipkin ‘24 — now signed to the NHL’s Utah Hockey Club — noticeably used a Bauer Proto R. Pennington wore Bauer skates, the same ones he’s in this year.
“That’s just how I am,” Pennington said. “I don’t like to break in new gear.”
But his reluctance toward change is not simply that. Rather, it’s indicative of a larger trend present among both Bobcat hockey programs last season.
Of the 44 skaters rostered between Quinnipiac’s men’s and women’s teams in 2023-24, just 18 wore CCM skates. A plurality (21 skaters) were in Bauer, while four laced up True skates.
“We had a lot of guys that were already in Bauer skates last year,” Whitman said. “So that was kind of one of the driving factors behind the change.”
Women’s junior forward Tessa Holk joined that crowd when she transferred from Colgate, another Bauer school, in the offseason.
“I love the (Bauer Supreme) Mach skates,” Holk said. “I’ve had those the past three years now and I don’t think I’ll change, ever. They just fit so well.”
Knowing its contract with CCM expired at the end of the season, Quinnipiac met with different brands in the late fall of 2023, including a meeting with Bauer in November.
“We gave everyone pretty much a fair shake of it,” Whitman said. “We sat down with multiple brands and fielded offers.”
No final decision was made until later in the season, but by the start of the new year there was a “pretty good idea that we were going to be switching over.”
“After weighing the options from the different brands, we felt that Bauer was just going to offer us the best deal going forward,” Whitman said.
Players were informed of the impending change in the spring, shortly before the NCAA Tournament. At that point, women’s forward Jenna Donohue had already made the decision to transfer to Quinnipiac from Dartmouth — also a Bauer school — for her graduate season. She learned of the change through Big Green assistant equipment manager Ryan Finley, who is now in the same role at Quinnipiac.
“Ryan was like ‘Guess what, we’re going to Bauer,’” Donohue said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god that’s so nice,’ because I was trying someone’s CCM stick, and I was like, ‘I don’t like this.’”
Once the season ended, the shift went into full swing. Whitman and other equipment staffers worked into the summer to move out CCM gear, selling off equipment to pro stock dealers around North America.
“It was a lot of long days, long nights getting everything moved out,” Whitman said. “We had essentially seven, eight years worth of CCM equipment that had to move on from here.”
Starting July 1, shipments of Bauer gear began to arrive at M&T Bank Arena, officially ushering in a new era. That doesn’t mean, however, that this is a monumental change for the programs.
“We’re at the point in time where the technology is pretty similar across the board,” Whitman said. “Everything’s so customizable nowadays that it’s pretty pretty easy to get somebody into something (they like), even if it doesn’t have the same brand name on it.”
But even minor changes can make a difference. Take junior forward Jeremy Wilmer for example. Like 14 of his teammates, Wilmer’s choice of stick is the Bauer Vapor HyperLite 2. He’s used Vapor sticks his whole life, including his last two near-point-per-game seasons at Boston University.
In the offseason, Wilmer tweaked his setup just slightly, moving from a P92 curve to a P90TM, giving his stick a slight curve on the toe of the blade and a lower lie (the angle between the shaft and blade).
“I do like to always get a read on if anything could make me better in any way and I thought that was something that could help my game,” he said.
And through eight games, Wilmer leads Quinnipiac with 10 points. Has changing his curve fueled his hot start? It’s tough to draw that correlation. But it certainly hasn’t hurt him. And in a sport where connection between player and gear is crucial, there’s a strong relationship between feeling and action.
“I think it gives you confidence too,” Wilmer said. “When you develop a routine and it works, you stick with that.”
