Izzy DiBari, Photographer / Hockey Beat Writer

From Alaska to New York, Will Gilson has been all over the United States map for his college hockey career. However, to end it off, he chose to play his final season back in his home state of Connecticut. 

Gilson is from Old Greenwich, Connecticut, which is about an hour away from the M&T Bank Arena, home of the Quinnipiac University men’s ice hockey team, the very team the defenseman chose for his senior year. 

Prior to playing at Quinnipiac, Gilson spent his first two years at the University of Alaska-Anchorage and his junior year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

Before his college years, he played for Boston Jr. Bruins (Marlborough, MA), Westminster Prep (Simsbury, CT), and Mid Fairfield (Greenwich, CT)– all teams that played in a close vicinity to his home. Leaving for Alaska was quite the disruption.

As a Connecticut kid, Gilson knew this is where he wanted to be. During his years playing for Mid Fairfield, playing locally at some point within his college years was the ultimate goal.

 “You always wanted to play for a school by your state and coming here, the main thought process was they’re gonna be a great team and I wanna go win a national championship and I got a chance to do that here,” Gilson said during a news conference following the team’s win against Maine on Oct. 18. Gilson could not be reached for an interview for this story.

Although the national championship was just out of reach for the Bobcats this year, the team won the ECAC regular season title for the sixth consecutive year and made it to the NCAA regional finals. 

A special part about playing for a team in his home state is that the people he grew up with can come support his games. At the final match of the regular season against Harvard, Gilson had a group of friends in the stands to cheer him on. At the end of the game when the trophy came out, they were all at the boards yelling, “There you go, Gilly!”

Joining a new team as a senior meant that he automatically stepped into a leadership role. With the Quinnipiac team, many of the players have had experience being on a team with each other prior to their time in Hamden, but that wasn’t the case for Gilson. The only Quinnipiac hockey players he played with in other leagues already had left the team: Collin Graf, Sam Lipkin and Cooper Moore. 

Despite this, he fit into the leadership role seamlessly and was happy to take it on. In fact, being a leader is something he’s been looking forward to throughout the entirety of his college career. 

“It’s been a cool scenario, I obviously wanted to be here and then obviously wanted to be a leader kind of everywhere I’ve been, and you know, hasn’t really worked out like that and it works out like that this year so it’s really just a perfect fit,” Gilson said. “I love being a leader and just trying to help out in any way.” 

Tyler Borgula, a sophomore forward for the Bobcats, had a lot of praise for Gilson and the rest of the seniors. 

“Every single one of those guys impacted me in being a leader,” Borgula said.They inspired me, this team and obviously the community around us. From the bottom of my heart and from everyone else’s heart, these guys mean the world to us; we look up to them and wish them nothing but the best in the future.”

Gilson stepped up as a leader during his year at Quinnipiac and played a major role on the ice. This season, he put up 28 points, including five goals and 23 assists, leading all defensemen on the team in points. That was an improvement from his time at RPI last year, when he led the Engineers with just 24 points. 

His efforts on this team didn’t go unnoticed. As of April 4, Gilson headed to Rhode Island where he was signed for an amateur tryout with the Providence Bruins. Although the future of his hockey career might end up taking him beyond his home state, he still can forever look back on his final year in college hockey where he got to play right here, in Connecticut.