As the Quinnipiac Bobcats men’s hockey team made its championship march into the Frozen Four, the Hamden university and its bookstore cashed in on this newfound popularity.
“The hockey team’s success has had a great impact on our sales,” said Margaret Samul, the Quinnipiac University Bookstore manager.
After the hockey team beat Union College on March 31 to advance to the Frozen Four, the university bookstore stocked up on hockey merchandise extremely quickly, Samul said.
That led to a boost in sales for the bookstore’s owner, Illinois-based Follett Higher Education Group.
The store has completely sold out of its hockey jerseys and hockey sweatshirts, and sales have increased for most athletics-related merchandise, Samul said.
The team finished the regular season with a program-record 21-game unbeaten streak, its best ever regular reason record, and the No. 1 ranking in the nation.
“The men’s ice hockey team being the number one team in the country has created a tremendous boom for the university,” said John Morgan, the associate vice president for public relations at Quinnipiac.
For a university with 8,000 students better known for its political polling, gaining recognition for the hockey team was quite the change in pace.
“This is a very big time for the school,” Morgan said. “On top of the men’s ice hockey team being No. 1, we are also opening a medical school.”
Quinnipiac has come a long way since its induction into the Eastern College Athletic Conference eight years ago.
The men’s ice hockey team went from being a Division II program in 1998, to its first Frozen Four appearance in program history this year as the top seed in the tournament.
The hockey team’s head coach, Rand Pecknold, has been named Clark Hodder Division I Coach of the Year.
