Quinnipiac set to host North Dakota

North Dakota visits Quinnipiac this weekend in men’s hockey, bringing one of the venerable programs in the sport to Hamden for the first time. The teams have met four times, twice in Grand Forks, once in an NCAA regional and in the 2016 national championship game.

Only Michigan has won more NCAA men’s hockey championships than North Dakota’s eight (and only one more), and Denver is the only other program to have won as many. Quinnipiac has played Michigan four times, all on the road, and has never met Denver.

The ECAC is, of course, home to some of the oldest NCAA hockey teams, while Quinnipiac is one of the newer faces in Division I, moving up in 1998.

Here are a few of the biggest-name out-of-conference teams to visit Frank Perrotti Jr. Arena:

St. Cloud State, Oct. 23-24, 2015:

Two years and change after Quinnipiac beat SCSU in the Frozen Four in Pittsburgh, the Huskies, ranked ninth, paid a weekend visit. The Bobcats won two games by the same margin as that national semifinal, taking 5-2 and 4-1 victories.

Boston University, Dec. 12, 2015; Oct. 8, 2017:

Quinnipiac was ranked second and had started the season 15-0-2 when the No. 11 Terriers came to town for the first time; Boston University left with a 4-1 win. BU returned two years later, this time ranked No. 2 themselves; the Terriers won in overtime.

Boston College, Oct. 19, 2018:

The five-time national champions arrived winless, ranked No. 18, and after the first of 10 career shutouts by goalie Keith Petruzzelli, the Eagles were never ranked again, finishing with their first losing season in 21 years.

UMass, Dec. 7, 2018:

The Minutemen arrived with highly touted defenseman Cale Makar and, for the first time in school history, the No. 1 ranking in the USCHO poll. Quinnipiac and Andrew Shortridge’s 32 saves beat them 4-0. (UMass, two years away from an NCAA championship, got revenge in Amherst the next night.)