HAMDEN, Conn– On Saturday night, while students at the M&T Bank Arena were watching the banner being raised, behind a closed curtain was Edward (Ed) Laudano Jr, the Head Carpenter at Quinnipiac University’s York Hill campus, who was the man raising the 2023 National Championship Banner.
“Just being here and being able to do it, I was very honored…very honored,” Laudano said.
Laudano has been working at Quinnipiac since January 2008. When he started, he worked the night shift at Quinnipiac’s Mount Carmel campus from 4 pm to 12:30 am as a mechanic for Quinnipiac facilities. He was responsible for performing maintenance on Quinnipiac University property.
Once he moved up to the York Hill campus two years later, he began to work at the newly constructed residence halls and the TD Bank Sports Center, now M&T Bank Arena, as a Quinnipiac facilities employee, being promoted to head carpenter, which meant if anything broke on the York Hill campus, he would go and fix it.
When Ed started working at the York Hill campus, Quinnipiac’s Men’s and Women’s hockey teams were nowhere near as successful as they are now. The two teams moved to the newly constructed TD Banknorth Sports Center two years earlier. Both hockey teams just barely held a record above .500.
“I didn’t know a lot about [hockey] because I worked on the other campus…” Laudano remembers. “When I came up here, I started working the hockey games, and that’s when I started enjoying it and getting into it.”
Throughout the years, Ed has taken his son and daughter to games at the TD Bank Sports Center. From a young age, his son, Edward (Eddie) Laudano III fell in love with hockey and wanted to play.
“He wanted to play hockey because my nephew played hockey, and he thought it was the greatest thing,” One decision Eddie made at a young age, as Ed said, changed his mind about hockey, “He wanted to be right down by the glass watching them real close…they just happened to check up against a glass right by him…Well, because of that, he never wanted to play hockey anymore.”
“I remember that vividly,” Eddie laughed and recalled that moment when was little, “I was scared to death.”
Even though Eddie did not continue to play hockey throughout his childhood, he developed his love for lacrosse. As a sophomore business major at Quinnipiac, he currently plays attack for the Men’s Club Lacrosse team, but while at school, he rekindled his love for the game of hockey.
Last year, Eddie played intramural hockey on weekends and this year, Eddie has gone to nearly every hockey game for both the men’s and women’s teams, who are both having strong starts to their 2023-24 campaigns.
On Saturday night, Eddie was beyond excited to go to the banner night and watch some Quinnipiac hockey, but also know that his dad was the person raising that banner.
“It was awesome to know that my dad was raising the 2023 National Championship Banner, and only one person in the world did that, and it was him. That is something I’ll remember forever, and I know that he and I will never forget that moment.”
Ed was beyond excited to have his son in the arena that night so they could share that night, even though it was not necessarily together, “With my son being here with all his friends and me working it and being on the ice, moving the net around and going around the boards, banging on the glass, and I had the whole first row banging on the glass, the Teletubbies and everybody, so, it was very exciting.”
One of the most significant traditions at Quinnipiac’s hockey games is four students in costumes of the characters in the famous British children’s show “Teletubbies,” and every game, they sit in the front row on the glass, leading the Quinnipiac student section with all the chants and cheers.
The Quinnipiac Men’s Ice Hockey team struggled on Saturday night, as they lost their two top scorers from their historical season in their 2022-23 run. Colin Graf went down five minutes into the game after a blind-side collision that resulted in him leaving the game early due to an apparent head injury. Sam Lipkin also left the game early as he received a game misconduct for a slew-foot penalty.
The Quinnipiac Bobcats had to adjust to a very young and talented Boston College Eagles team, the Eagles were able to collect a goal late in the first period with a goal from the freshman Andre Gasseau. The Eagles held onto the lead for most of the game, until Quinnipiac first-year Mason Marcellus leveled the game at one with under five minutes to play in regulation.
In overtime, fifth overall, 2022 NHL draft pick Cutter Gauthier spoiled Quinnipiac banner night with a game-clinching goal with 9.5 seconds remaining. Even though the Bobcats’ banner night was spoiled in a 2-1 overtime loss to Boston College, that did not spoil his night.
“I told my wife, ‘It was the best game I’ve been to’. She goes, ‘But what do you mean it was the best game? They lost’. I said, ‘Yes, they lost, but it was the vibe when you walk into the place, and it was sold out, the people that were in here… you could feel the energy when you walked in.’”
At the end of the day, Ed Laudano “was very honored that [he] was able to do this for the university” and added he thanked all of his co-workers for their help in making that night such a special night for the university but said, “I just happened to be the one that was hitting the switch.”
Ed also thanked all the amazing people he gets to work with every day, especially the Quinnipiac Athletics up on the York Hill campus, “it’s so nice working with all the coaches, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s, and women’s hockey. And I’ve been working with all the teams doing different things for them, mechanical things… I’ve got to socialize with all these people, and I know them all now. And we’ve got friendly over the years, and that’s special. It’s part of one big Quinnipiac family.”
Ed Laudano is looking forward to another year of Quinnipiac hockey and hopes to either raise or see another championship banner raised at the M&T Bank Arena very soon.
