New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Shifting rinks
Former ‘CT Ice’ moves to Quinnipiac
In a perfect world, this weekend the state’s men’s college hockey world would converge 8,000 strong on Bridgeport for the fourth-annual Connecticut Ice tournament.
Nothing was perfect for anyone in 2020-21, and then 2021-22 brought its own challenges. In the end, the once (and future?) Connecticut Ice tournament happens instead at Quinnipiac’s M&T Bank Center this Friday and Saturday.
The state’s four Division I schools seem not to be letting “perfect” get in the way of good for the moment.
“All the institutions think this event has legs,” Sacred Heart deputy athletic director Charlie Dowd said. “We want to grow it. We’ve got three of the best buildings, relatively new, and we’ve got an iconic venue that’s been renovated.”
Yale (3-12-4) and UConn (15-7-3, 12th in both national polls) are set to meet Friday at 4 p.m. Sacred Heart (12-9-2) and Quinnipiac (18-3-3, third in one poll and fourth in the other), the champions in the first two years of the tournament, follow at 7. Saturday’s games are at the same times. Tickets are on sale at Quinnipiac’s website, though on Wednesday it listed only $28 fullday standing-room tickets.
“It will be a great experience for the kids,” Dowd said, “to play in front of a raucous crowd, and for the teams that are going to the (NCAA) tournament, to play that kind of oneand-done.”
CT Ice was an SNY production in its first two outings at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, in 2020 and 2022. Dowd said the decision to change things was “more mutual” between the network and the schools.
At least as of Wednesday afternoon, Quinnipiac wasn’t calling the tournament “Connecticut Ice,’ in fact wasn’t yet calling it anything on its website, and there was no announcement yet on a television broadcast.
Dowd said the four schools plan to meet after the tournament to discuss how to go forward.
The tournament could rotate among the schools’ four home rinks as long as it keeps going; it took long enough to get them together in the first place, two decades after all four had arrived in Division I.
Yale, 10 years removed from the national championship it won in Pittsburgh against Quinnipiac, has Ingalls Rink in New Haven, a landmark 1950s venue with a renovated 2000s infrastructure downstairs. Sacred Heart and UConn opened on-campus arenas this month, Martire Family Arena in Fairfield and Toscano Family Ice Forum in Storrs.
Through a spokesperson, Oak View Group, which operates Total Mortgage Arena, declined to comment on the tournament’s move and suggested contacting SNY. (The arena has an NCAA men’s hockey regional coming up in late March.)
A spokesperson for SNY had already said she would forward a request for comment to the schools, which drew no immediate response. Attempts to reach Quinnipiac AD Greg Amodio were unsuccessful.
If it seems as if any of them could have just said “money” and hung up, Dowd said costs weren’t the only factor.
The 2020 tournament drew over 10,000 fans for the two days, which is still only a little more than half-filling the arena. The world shut down a couple of months later. There was no tournament in 2020-21, when COVID-19 protocols reigned and Yale didn’t even play. So there was no chance to build momentum.
The tournament did not release attendance figures last year; Saturday’s games were played with a winter storm outside, and some Bridgeport streets around the arena were still slushy before Sunday’s games.
In its first year, the four-school tournament was envisioned as part of a festival, with youth competitions and high school games. There were a few of those games in 2020 but not, as things were reverting to normal, in 2022.
“We had a pretty good start the first year,” Dowd said, “and then we got whacked with COVID the second year and the storm ... in the third.”