Oftentimes, it comes down to just having experience. Sometimes it’s as simple as knowing what to do and when to do it. Like when to leave for the arena, or what’s the right time for a pregame nap. There will be no doubt at this point that Quinnipiac will have everything dialed in. Will UConn?
Rand Pecknold has coached in 22 NCAA Tournament games. The head man has brought the Bobcats to an NCAA leading sixth-straight appearance, and also has the most wins of any active Division I coach with 666.
UConn is about as far away on the other end of the spectrum as you can get. It has zero. In fact, Friday will be the first NCAA Tournament appearance in program history. That said, the Huskies do have about as experienced a coach as you’re going to find today in Mike Cavanaugh.
“Cav and his staff have got it humming pretty good right now, they’ve figured it out, so I see them being good for a long time,” Pecknold said.
Cavanaugh spent 18 seasons as an assistant at Boston College under former head coach Jerry York. The Eagles would go on to win four national championships and appear in 10 Frozen Fours during that time.
In many ways the Huskies mirror the path Pecknold has had to take to get the Bobcats into the national spotlight. Albeit with a little more resources.
“I have a lot of respect for Rand and what he’s done at Quinnipiac,” Cavanaugh said. “He went through a lot of the same struggles, maybe even more so, than we did. The one thing, they are consistently a team that doesn’t beat themselves. They play a very structured game, very good defensively. That consistency he’s built there is something we’re also striving for.”
Pecknold knows what it takes to finally get a program to the big dance, even if it was 23 years ago.
“Certainly, it’s a process,” Pecknold said. “It’s hard to build a program. UConn’s done a good job, getting that rink (Toscano Family Ice Forum) on campus, I’m sure that helps a lot. I think he’s done a really good job of hiring good assistants, they always have plenty of talent. I think the big thing I see in that team this year is the buy-in, they’re all in.”
But this UConn team isn’t a Cinderella story — not by a long shot.
“We’re excited to play UConn, they’ve had a great year,” Pecknold said.
It will be coming into Friday’s game as the No. 6 team in the nation, falling short to Maine in the Hockey East Championship, 5-2. Cavanaugh has led the Huskies to 20 win seasons in three out of the last four years, and this year’s team is probably the most dangerous yet.
“It’s been better and better every day,” UConn graduate student defenseman John Spetz said. “Seeing the growth and finally making the tournament is pretty cool. It speaks levels to this team and the people involved in this program. It’s not going to stop, it’s going to keep growing.”
The Huskies do have one player who has prior experience in the NCAA Tournament — graduate student forward Hugh Larkin. The Western Michigan transfer made the tournament three times in his four years there.
On the other side, Quinnipiac has no shortage of players on its roster with tournament experience, with 11. While only three remain from the 2023 National Championship roster, the Bobcats will be able to lean on players such as graduate students, forward Travis Treloar and defenseman Cooper Moore, to impart some wisdom on guys who haven’t been there before.
“Obviously it’s UConn’s first time going to the NCAA Tournament, we have to use that to our advantage,” Treloar said. “We’ve been there last year as well, just use that experience and preach it to the guys in our locker room playing in their first tournament.”
Though at 5 p.m. Friday the puck is going to drop, and whether you’ve been there before or not, you’re still going to have to execute on the ice.
“It’s on the older guys to kind of give the crash course to the younger guys who haven’t been here,” Moore said. “But also not make it too much of a spotlight for them when they go out and are too scared to play.”
These two squads do also have experience going up against each other too. On Jan. 24, UConn junior forward Ryan Tattle scored a last second goal to beat Quinnipiac 2-1 in the Connecticut Ice semifinals. The loss is a feeling that Quinnipiac does not want to feel again, especially against this UConn team.
“We’ve seen the clips on film a lot so we’ve been taken back to that feeling,” Moore said. “Throughout the year we’ve had a couple times where we’ve had that feeling of losing in the last second so we’re just going to try and use those moments and try not to have that happen this weekend.”
Whether or not UConn leaves Quinnipiac with that bitter taste in its mouth again Friday night isn’t known. What is known is that Quinnipiac has been here many times before, and Pecknold knows all the right buttons to push to get his team wins on the national stage.
