For the Quinnipiac men’s hockey team, most mornings consist of pucks and skates. On Tuesday, Jan. 15 it meant crayons and coloring books for the Bobcats. The team spent the morning at Green Acres Elementary School in North Haven, Conn. with a group of excited kindergarten students.

“This was a lot of fun,” senior captain Jamie Bates said. “I think it’s a good thing whenever we can get our team out in the community. It’s important for these kids and also our guys. I think we had as much fun today as some of those kids.”

As part of Quinnipiac Athletics’ Positive Play initiative, members of the hockey team spent most of the morning on Tuesday reading stories to the children of Green Acres while others, like junior Bud Fisher, showed off their coloring skills.

“After we read ‘Franklin’s Blankets’ and ‘The Principal from the Black Lagoon’ to our group, we had the kids draw their favorite part of the book,” Fisher explained. “We had some good little artists in our group. They even got me to do a drawing – which didn’t really go as well as I planned. I’m not much of an artist. Our team had a lot of fun, and the kids had a lot of fun.”

Senior Mark Agnew steered clear of any coloring, but was quick to give commentary on teammate Eric Lampe’s drawing prowess. 

“I enjoyed being around the kids, they were a lot of fun, but I left the coloring to the kids,” Agnew said. “I gave them a few suggestions of what they should draw and they went from there. I knew they would be a lot better at that than I would. [Eric] Lampe was pretty good though. He stayed in the lines almost as well as some of those kids.”

Others, like freshman Brett Dickinson took a different approach to the morning.

“We had our group coloring,” Agnew explained. “And one of our kids started laughing. So we looked over and it looked like the kids were actually reading the book to Brett and he was kind of hanging out.”

Quinnipiac Athletics’ Positive Play initiative is an NCAA Life Skills program designed to support the total development of Quinnipiac student-athletes. The mission of Positive Play is to provide a comprehensive life skills program for student-athletes that encourages their growth in decision making, enhances their interpersonal relationships, and enables them to make meaningful contributions to their communities.