Mya Soto, Audience Engagement Team

HAMDEN, Conn. – The air outside M&T Bank Arena can feel chilly on a typical Friday night, but inside, it’s exciting. A sold-out crowd of nearly 3,400 people creates a wall of sound so thick it feels tangible. The scene for the men’s ice hockey team after winning a  national championship features a “Bobcat Nation” fever that intensifies with every passing season. 

Inside the same arena for a women’s ice hockey game routinely tells a different story. The Quinnipiac women’s team, a program that consistently ranks in the top 10, takes the ice. The crowd is sparse, the student section is virtually non-existent, leaving a sea of empty blue seats. The loudest sounds, once the yells and cheers of a booming student section, are now the crisp cracks of the puck hitting the boards. 

“Everyone says Quinnipiac is such a hockey school, but it’s such a men’s hockey school,” says Hailey Julissa, a former player for the women’s program. “Nobody cares about the women’s team. Nobody comes to our games.” 

This is the Quinnipiac paradox: two elite programs, one sheet of ice and two different worlds of exposure. The men’s program enjoys celebrity status that has lasted years after the 2023 national championship. The women’s program, which has consistently maintained a higher national ranking and has more ECAC tournament titles than the men’s team, remains a mystery to its own student body. 

The women’s program, led by head coach Cassandra Turner, goes far beyond being simply good. This team produces numerous professional-level players. This is confirmed by the latest Professional Women’s Hockey League draft, in which four Bobcats were taken, including defenseman Kendall Cooper, the sixth overall pick. Nonetheless, on-campus awareness hardly begins to recognize these accomplishments. 

The difference between the two programs is more than just who attends the games; it also includes the game day scene itself. The men’s program is constantly being pushed as an important event by the study body, while the women’s team struggles for the same attention from peers. 

“The men are marketed way more,” Julissa says. “They put on so much better of a show for the men’s game… they have more bells and whistles that make the whole thing more interactive. They open that whole top section during men’s games, and they don’t do that during women’s games.” 

Even the university’s bookstore reflects this inequality. Julissa remembers looking for a simple way her grandparents in Minnesota could represent her team. 

“I remember going to the school store … and half of the stuff all says only ‘Men’s Ice Hockey,’ ” she says. “I didn’t even need it to say ‘Women’s Hockey,’ I just wanted it to say ‘Hockey.’ Or all of it was national championship gear.” 

The impact of this isolation is most evident in the locker room, where the culture of the women’s program is one of hard, but unseen, work. The players maintain a demanding routine of strength training and fitness tests that push the limits of collegiate athletics even if the stadium is empty for their games. 

“Culture-wise, workouts and accountability is top of the standard. Like, some of the lifts and conditioning we would do are insane,” Julissa said, describing 7 a.m. beep tests and the standard for lifting weights. 

These athletes perform at the peak of their sport, yet they accomplish every success in relative isolation. While the men’s players are routinely praised for winning a title before they even joined the team, women’s players are frequently forced to justify their presence both on and off the ice. 

“I couldn’t just say I’m a hockey player because then all my professors just assumed I was a field hockey player,” Julissa said. “I’d have to specify that I was an ice hockey player.” 

It is a difficult pill for the women’s program to swallow, and the divide extends to the highest levels of student leadership. JJ Saunders, the sophomore class president, says that individuals in charge of campus culture are frequently unaware of what is going on. 

“I don’t think people know [the women are Top-10]. I didn’t know,” Saunders says. “The only reason I knew was because I had people who write for the [Quinnipiac] Chronicle who are very invested in the sports.” 

When asked if the “Bobcat Nation” spirit applies to all athletes, Saunders is blunt: “Nope. Just the men’s sports. Specifically men’s hockey. All I really hear about is men’s hockey.” 

The empty seats at M&T Bank arena raises a different question for the Quinnipiac community: Is the student body true supporters of Bobcat hockey, or are they fans of the men’s team and the recognition their championship win brought three years ago? As a representative of that particular student body, Saunders believes that the silence is a betrayal of the university’s values. 

“I think our campus has a lot to learn about, especially I think since one of our school’s pillars is inclusion… I think that difference between those two things are completely insane.” Saunders said. 

Until the passion in the stands and the effort on social media crosses gender norms, Quinnipiac’s ice will remain the place of two completely worlds: one loud and praised, the other quiet, elite, and for the time being, a mystery to most.