Quinnipiac set to begin on Tuesday

There are still details being worked out, but the Quinnipiac men’s and women’s hockey programs have finalized the nonconference schedules for the rest of 2020.

Quinnipiac men’s program, coming off 21-11-2 season (including 14-6-2 in the ECAC), will play its first six non-conference games at home beginning with Tuesday’s 7 p.m. matchup against American International College. LIU comes to Hamden on Nov. 27 followed by games against Clarkson (Nov. 29), Bowling Green (Dec. 18-19) and Holy Cross (Dec. 22). The Bobcats will travel to Massachusetts for games at AIC on Dec. 27 and Holy Cross two days later.

Leading goal scorer Odeen Tufto (7 goals, 31 assists), top goal scorer Wyatt Bongiovanni (15 goals), defenseman Peter

DiLiberatore as well as star goalie Keith Petruzzelli lead the list of returning players. Ty Smilanic, a third-round pick by the Florida Panthers, is one of five freshmen on the roster

The women’s team opens non-conference play on Dec. 4-5 with a pair of games against three-time NCAA champion Clarkson, which reached the Frozen Four five times from 201419. Those games are followed by contests against Sacred Heart on Dec. 13-14.

Other games for both programs will be announced at a later date.

The Quinnipiac women made a jump from 12-18-6 to 20-14-3 last season. The Bobcats return six of its top eight scorers including Lexie Adzija, who led the Bobcats with 18 assists and 29 points a season ago. Sadie Peart is the top returning goal scorer with 12, while Taylor Girard, Kate

Reilly, Brooke Bonsteel and Grace Markey each scored 17 points in 2019-20. The Bobcats do need to replace goaltender Abbie Ives who went 17-3-3 with a 1.90 goals- against average. Logan Angers, a former member of Canada’s U-18 program, was 3-0-1 in four starts with a GAA of 0.76.

The Ivy League recently announced its teams won’t play during the winter season, which will wreak havoc with the ECAC schedule since Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and Yale all play in the ECAC. The non-conference schedules have been a work in progress as well, including a planned men’s matchup between Quinnipiac and Sacred Heart among the college sporting events called off due to COVID-19.