I spent the morning at Quinnipiac to get information for a season preview later this week. The Bobcats open the season this weekend in Anchorage, Alaska. I'll be making the trip as well, so be sure to check the blog for news, notes and photos. Quinnipiac flies out Wednesday. It's about 13 hours from LaGuardia to Anchorage, with a stopover in Chicago.

Yale opens practice Friday, with the season opener in two weeks at the Liberty Hockey Invitational. Here's a quick note on future non-conference schedules for the Bulldogs.

The Ivy Shootout, in it's current format, will end after this season. Princeton has proposed a preseason tournament at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. which Yale would co-host. So Yale will open with the Tigers on the Friday, with two other teams playing a second game. UConn, UMass and Vermont are lined up for future tournaments. If it's something that works, the Bulldogs will continue to participate. But there are pros and cons, Yale coach Keith Allain said.

"We like the idea of playing in an NHL building," Allain said. "We like the idea of opening with an Ivy. We don't like the idea of two non-conference games on the road to start every year."

Yale and Harvard will play in Madison Square Garden in January, and do it again the following season. Merrimack and Vermont are on future schedules. There's no Western trip for 2014-15.