The official student newspaper of Quinnipiac University since 1929.
QUCHRONICLE.COM
APRIL 6, 2016
VOLUME 86, ISSUE 22
Men’s ice hockey prepares for second Frozen Four By NICK SOLARI Web Director
Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey head coach Rand Pecknold always thought the 201213 Bobcats were the best team he had ever coached. The program advanced to its first-ever Frozen Four that season, ultimately losing to Yale in the championship game in Pittsburgh and falling just short of its first national title. But now – after finishing the 2015-16 regular season as the No. 1 team in the country, winning the ECAC Hockey Tournament and advancing to the program’s second Frozen Four – he’s starting to change his mind. “I always thought [the 2012-13] team was better, and now I’m kind of on the fence a little bit,” Pecknold said. “It’s just been impressive… Maybe this team is better, I don’t know. They’re both great teams.” For now, Pecknold and the current Quinnipiac roster are focused on the 2016 Frozen Four, which kicks off on Thursday night in Tampa Bay. The Bobcats (31-3-7) will face the Boston College Eagles (28-7-5) for the first time ever at Amalie Arena at 5 p.m. with a trip to the national championship on the line. “We’re not enjoying anything right now,” Pecknold said. “We’re focused, we’re locked in. The biggest thing right now is for us to stay the course. We’ve never gotten ahead of ourselves, and if we continue to do that, that’s our best chance for success.”
NICK SOLARI /CHRONICLE
Men’s ice hockey forward Sam Anas dekes a defender in Quinnipiac’s win over UMass Lowell in the NCAA East Regional Final on March 27. Quinnipiac topped RIT 4-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on March
26 in Albany, then downed UMass Lowell the following day with a final score of 4-1 to
advance to the Frozen Four. Since then, the Bobcats have been preparing for their chance to win the program’s first national championship. The break has given Quinnipiac an opportunity to get healthy. Pecknold said that some of the “banged-up” players took a few days to rest following the regionals, but have been practicing all week to prepare for Thursday night’s game. “We needed [the break],” Pecknold said. “We’re beat up pretty good, and we’ve got to try and get healthy.” One of the Bobcats’ players that might have gained the most from the layoff is junior assistant captain Sam Anas, who was a gametime decision for both games in Albany. “[The time off] definitely helped,” Anas said. The Bobcats and Eagles enter the Frozen Four as the nation’s No. 4 and No. 5 ranked offenses, respectively. Defensively, Quinnipiac has surrendered 1.90 goals-per-game to Boston College’s 1.98. “They’ve got a lot of talented guys, a lot of skilled guys,” Quinnipiac captain Soren Jonzzon said. “They’re fast, big, they make plays and when they get an opportunity they’re gonna take advantage of it.” The top concern, for Jonzzon, is making sure that Quinnipiac doesn’t take pressure off the other team at any point. See FROZEN FOUR Page 14
Upcoming sophomores to overflow onto York Over 130 freshmen unable to select housing for fall semester
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Are you going to Tampa for the Frozen Four?
PATRICK HALLORAN /CHRONICLE
Some sophomores will live on York Hill next academic year after they were not able to select housing on Monday. “I know that the school wants to accept more kids, but it just seems like they’re being greedy with the money,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair to the students that have already been admitted into this place and who have been living here for a year, to just be like ‘hey, we don’t have a room for you anymore, go up to York.’” Ochoa said the issue she has experienced with the housing situation has made her ques-
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tion whether or not she would pick Quinnipiac if she had to go back and do it again. “I feel that I wouldn’t consider transferring because I’ve gotten so established here,” she said. “But if I was a student who was accepted here as being a senior in high school again, and I knew about this housing situation, I probably wouldn’t have picked it. I wouldn’t have picked Quinnipiac.”
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More than 130 freshmen were unable to select housing on Monday for the next academic year, according to university officials. These 139 students will select housing on April 7 at 10 a.m. with their original selection numbers, but Residential Life said not all of these students will end up with housing on this date. Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Cindy Long Porter said, in an email to current freshmen who don’t have room assignments for next year, that they will be able to select housing in eight apartments in Crescent on York Hill and two apartments in Sahlin Hall on Mount Carmel. Some sophomores lived on York Hill during the 2013-2014 academic year. “We will continue working with students over the course of the semester as additional spaces become available,” Porter said in an email. Freshman Savannah Ochoa is one of the students who could not choose housing for next year. She said she does not want to live on the York Hill campus as a sophomore. “I don’t even have a license,” she said. “I’m going to have to get all that figured out if I’m going to be living on York because I know that the shuttle system is sometimes not reliable. It’s not something I was planning on going through and it’s not fair.” Ochoa said she and her friends considered living off campus, but they would rather live on campus. “We even came to the point where we were looking for off campus housing that had nothing to do with Quinnipiac, just to rent our own
place,” she said. “But even that’s ridiculous. We shouldn’t have to do that.” Freshman Brittany Chan also did not pick housing on Monday and has toyed with the idea of living off campus. “I also start clinicals next year, so I’m going to be driving around anyways and it is a lot cheaper that way too,” she said. “But I really don’t know what’s going to happen if I don’t get any of those eight rooms [in Crescent].” A limited number of single spaces also remain available on the Mount Carmel campus in suites or apartments with Residential Assistants (RAs). Porter said if anyone is interested in being in one of these spaces to email Associate Director of Residential Life Melissa Karipidis. If students do not want to live with an RA and do not have a housing assignment after the process ends on April 7, Porter said to call the Mount Carmel Residential Life office at 203-582-8666 to schedule an appointment beginning April 11. The appointments will be to discuss where students will be housed and possibly be able to choose at least one roommate or suitemate, as spaces become available. Chan said she thinks the housing process is fair, but she is not sure why the university did not anticipate this problem. “I just don’t think they thought it out enough that they would have so many extra students and now they’re stressing out about that,” she said. “I feel like they could have had a better solution beforehand before they had this whole system start.” Ochoa is disappointed with how the university is handling the increased student population.
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