College Sports

Connor Caponi’s Career Defined What It Meant To Be A Pioneer

Story Links David Carle has a saying that he likes to use as the University of Denver Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey head coach: it’s not easy to break records at DU.   With the men’s ice hockey program owning an NCAA-record 10 national championships and some of the team records well […]

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David Carle has a saying that he likes to use as the University of Denver Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey head coach: it’s not easy to break records at DU.
 
With the men’s ice hockey program owning an NCAA-record 10 national championships and some of the team records well out of reach due to the current era of the sport, it’s not surprising the difficulty for any individual to accomplish the feat of holding the top mark as a Pioneer.
 
Denver has had a lot of top-end players come through its doors through 75-plus years of history, but no one has played in more games in crimson and gold than graduate student forward Connor Caponi.
 
Caponi broke the school record for games played by suiting up in his 169th contest on Feb. 8 at Arizona State, surpassing the previous mark that was set by former teammate Ryan Barrow in the 2022 NCAA National Championship Game. Like Barrow, Caponi was the benefactor of being allowed a fifth season of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and he went on to smash the Pioneers old mark with 185 total games in the arch Denver sweater—tied for the second-most in NCAA history.
 
“A lot of great players have come through here. It’s just an honor to play as many games as I have for the program,” said Caponi postgame after setting the DU new high mark at Mullett Arena in Tempe, Arizona.
 
The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native was the perfect person to set Denver’s games-played record.
 
Caponi spent most of his five years as a key cog on DU’s bottom-six forward lines and spent 2024-25 centering and mentoring a pair of freshmen in Hagen Burrows and Jake Fisher. While not usually a high-minutes player, he made sure his presence was known when he was on the ice.
 
He registered 179 penalty minutes, 100 blocked shots and a career plus-14 rating to go along with 18 goals and 19 assists in his time on the Denver hilltop. In his final season, Caponi tied his career best with five goals and set new personal highs with 65 penalty minutes, 25 blocked shots and a plus-8 rating and etched his name in the record book
 
“Connor put a lot of time, effort and energy into our program and it’s really cool for him to be honored in this way,” Carle said of Caponi’s record. “You know the humble kid that he is, it makes him a little bit uncomfortable, but I do think he’s earned all of this and really happy for him,”
 
The forward joined Denver as a freshman during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign after two seasons with the USHL Waterloo Black Hawks and following his stint of high school hockey with Culver Military Academy in Indiana. Coming to Denver, he understood his assignment of doing whatever he could to help the squad win and setting records were never at the forefront of his attention.
 
“It was never something that was on my mind. It is just always kind of thinking about what I can do to help the team and try to help them win national championships,” Caponi said. “As the season kind of started here, it was brought up, but still wasn’t on my mind, was just thinking of what I can do to help the team. Eventually got to that milestone, so it’s pretty cool.”
 
A heart-and-soul type of player, Caponi had worn a letter in the last two seasons, and the Pioneers went all-out in honoring their alternate captain for the special occasion with a couple of surprises.
 
Equipment manager Nick Meldrum had t-shirts made featuring Caponi’s iconic image of him standing on the boards of Xcel Energy Center celebrating with the Pioneer faithful after winning the 2024 NCAA title in St. Paul, Minnesota, and his teammate wore them pregame on the day of his record-breaking event. Sports-equipment company Warrior also joined in by crafting a custom gold-wrapped stick that featured the signatures of Caponi’s teammates and was presented to him a few days after his achievement.
 
“He gives it all, every night, every week, so really proud of him,” Carle said. “It’s not easy to break any records at Denver, so it was fun to be able to present him with T-shirts that Nick Meldrum made him and the present back in Denver.”
 
Caponi appeared in 185 of a possible 193 contests across the five seasons, including 62 straight outings that dated back to 2022-23 before missing his only two games this past year on Dec. 6-7 at Western Michigan with a lower-body injury.
 
Being out of the lineup for those two contests in Kalamazoo hurt, but it was the four that he missed at the end of 2021-22 that stung the most. After playing in 36 games that season, he got hurt just before the national tournament and was unable to play in any of the NCAA contests as the Pioneers went on to defeat Minnesota State to win their then ninth championship.
 
He never took being in the lineup for granted and went on to be part of the winningest class in program history. What started with him playing in a “bubble” of the NCHC Pod in Omaha and empty arenas throughout his freshman campaign transformed to him winning five Gold Pans—never relinquishing the trophy to rival Colorado College—two Penrose Cups as NCHC regular-season champions, the 2024 NCHC Frozen Faceoff Championship, three NCAA Frozen Four appearances and national championships in 2022 and 2024.
 
Caponi was a leader with the group despite not being a headline player on the team. He did the little things that could change the course of the game, and his actions on and off the ice epitomized what it is to be a Denver Pioneer.
 
“It’s an honor to have played for this program for as long as I have,” Caponi reflected in February. “I mean there’s so many amazing players that have come through and have left their mark on the program. It’s just an honor that I’m able to leave my mark on the program as well.”
 
 



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