Quinnipiac celebrates Chorney’s first goal
The ninth goal of a 9-2 hockey game usually doesn’t get much celebration: a few pats on the head, a low-key flyby of glovetaps at the bench.
Marcus Chorney’s was a little different on Monday. The Quinnipiac junior got the unusual call for a late power play. He scored on a one-timer from the left circle for his first goal in college.
And fellow defenseman Zach Metsa nearly jumped him like Yogi Berra on Don Larsen.
“He’s earned everything he’s got here. He has battled from the day he stepped on,” Metsa said after that 9-2 home win over Sacred Heart on Monday.
“We were all fired up for him to, last year, have that jump, to be in the lineup consistently and play well. I live with him, too. He’s one of my best buddies. For him, scoring that goal was huge. I know everything he’s gone through. It meant a lot.”
Chorney played only two games as a freshman and a dozen last year, but he’d played the last 10 before the COVID-19 pandemic cut short the 2019-20 season before the ECAC quarterfinals.
“Great for Chorns. He’s battled,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said. “For a junior, he stuck it out, makes the opening lineup.”
The No. 11 Bobcats welcome in Bowling Green, ranked 13th in one poll and 12th in the other, on Friday and Saturday nights for the first meetings between the schools.
The Bobcats are 2-0 after two very different games, beating Sacred Heart again in overtime on Tuesday. They got goals from 10 different players in the two wins. Chorney’s was a while coming.
“It’s definitely a relief,” Chorney said. “Thanks to the guy who passed it to me, but it’s definitely a relief.” The guy who passed it to him was Metsa, who had a four-point game, his first in college.
“I think a lot of guys were pretty pumped up for me,” Chorney added. “Obviously it was a nine-goal game, so it’s a little bit different, but it was definitely a lot of emotions. It’s been a long time. It felt good for sure to get that off my chest.”
Scoring goals has never been the center of his game as a defenseman, though.
Chorney grew up in Minnesota. His father, Marc, played 210 NHL games. His older brother, Taylor, is playing in Austria this year with 166 NHL games and 400 AHL games behind him. All three are defensemen, and none has scored more than eight goals in a full season of college or pro hockey.
But with under five minutes left in an 8-2 game, Pecknold told Marcus Chorney to take a power-play shift. He told him to man the “Priskie Spot,” where former Bobcat and current Florida Panther Chase Priskie had worked, also a right-handed defenseman on the left side.
“I don’t want to try to run it up or anything,” Pecknold said. “I just threw five guys out there, and he bombs away. He was excited.
“He’s got a good shot, and he found a way to score there.”
As forward Wyatt Bongiovanni said after Tuesday’s game, the Bobcats have themselves a bit of a pro schedule right now. They’ve got these two with Bowling Green, a home-and-home with Holy Cross on Tuesday and Wednesday and a homeand-home with AIC next weekend.
Then the ECAC season gets going, though only Quinnipiac, St. Lawrence, Colgate and Clarkson are playing this season. Speaking of a pro schedule, twice in January will Quinnipiac and Clarkson meet in AHL-style series of three games in three days.
UCONN ADDS PAIR: Hockey East announced Thursday that UConn men’s hockey has added games against UMass Lowell and UMass next week.
No. 15 UMass Lowell will play UConn at Freitas Ice Forum in Storrs on Monday at 5 p.m. The Huskies visit No. 10 UMass on Wednesday at 3:30, and NESN is scheduled to air that game.
UConn, receiving votes in the US College Hockey Online poll, is 1-2-1 after upsetting No. 2 Boston College 3-1 at home on Dec. 12. East Haven’s Nick Capone scored his first collegiate goal in the victory.