As college hockey tournament becomes reality, Connecticut should embrace our own Beanpot

The idea has been a great one for a long time, far too long. The idea has been on ice for so long that we wondered if it would ever find reality on the ice.

At long last, it appears to be happening. According to multiple sources, the four Connecticut Division I men’s hockey teams are set to play in a two-day tournament on a Friday and Saturday in late January 2020 at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport.

The tournament agreement is said to be for two years and that SNY is involved in the presentation of the event. A press conference is expected in the coming weeks.

This is a timely week for word to leak. Northeastern overcame a furious Boston College rally Monday night in front of 15,015 fans at TD Garden to capture back-toback Beanpot titles for the first time since 1984-1985. As usual, the atmosphere was epic. The Beanpot shows us what is possible. It shows us the ceiling.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” Northeastern senior captain Eric Williams told the Boston Globe. “Something that none of us are ever going to forget. I wish I could play in this tournament every year until the day I die.”

The Connecticut Cup or Nutmeg Cup or Taylor Cup or whatever organizers plan to call the event obviously won’t be the Beanpot from the opening faceoff. Not even close. Then again, the Beanpot didn’t start out as the Beanpot. It was called the New England Invitational Hockey Tournament in 1952 with a final game attendance of 3,382. The tournament moved to Boston Garden in 1957 and grew and grew into regional legend that thrives and defies any of the broad strokes of 21st century national sports culture. Yes, something down the street can still be bigger than life.

The funny part about Eric Williams’ dramatic quote is he is from Ontario. That’s how big and emotional the Beanpot is for those schools, their students, their fans. Outsiders dearly want to be on the inside.

For the growth of the college game in our state, the all-Connecticut tournament needs to be hyped and sustained. For the sporting culture in Connecticut, the tournament needs to be carefully nurtured. This one is worth the care. This one is worth the commitment from private and public entities.

We play this right, this will be something to savor and look forward to for decades.

We play it wrong and it could be two years and out.

The idea is great only if the commitment is, too. If it becomes half as big as the Beanpot that’s still twice as much as most stuff in our state.

Quinnipiac is a national power. Yale, with a 2013 national championship, is right there. The schools play twice a year in the ECAC. Because of Ivy League rules, Yale is restricted to 29 games, five fewer than the NCAA regular-season limit, and surely doesn’t relish three games against Quinnipiac. Yale likes to keep those non-league games fresh. So it will be interesting to see if Yale will commit to longer than two years. Let’s hope it does. The tournament should never grow stale.

This is a great opportunity for Sacred Heart, the underdog which has given UConn fits in recent seasons, to feature its program. This is great for UConn hockey, looking to show its investment in Hockey East is a good one and not portrayed as a weight on an athletic budget already running $40 million in the red.

As far back as September 2017 Hearst Connecticut Media’s Chip Malafronte reported that indications are that this tournament finally will happen in January 2020. Seventeen months later, yes, it will. The ice has moved at glacial pace. I found a column I wrote for the Hartford Courant and here was Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold speaking passionately about the tournament needing to happen. That was December 2013.

Pecknold talked about how he and former Yale coach Tim Taylor had been working on the idea of an annual tournament for 13-14 years. He said they had reached the framework of an agreement and were ready to start moving forward with UConn and Sacred Heart. A month later in 2006, Taylor was forced out as coach after nearly three decades. He is the godfather of state college hockey. If the tournament isn’t named after him, certainly the winner’s trophy should be.

Taylor died in the spring of 2013, a few weeks after Yale won the NCAA title over Quinnipiac at the Frozen Four in Pittsburgh. Mike Cavanaugh was hired as UConn coach that spring. In our first conversation, he was already pitching the tournament idea. A Boston-area guy, Cavanaugh pointed out that growing tradition and rivalries accelerated the Beanpot to a cult tournament.

With grassroots hockey so strong in Fairfield County, with those towns producing excellent players and with the financial wherewithal to back its interest, I would have argued five years ago Webster Bank Arena was the perfect place to start the tournament. Then UConn played some games in Bridgeport and they were not well attended. We’ll see.

Should the event be annually rotated through campus venues at Yale and Quinnipiac and onto the XL Center and back to Webster? Can the XL Center prove its worth as a central rallying point? Is the third weekend in January a good spot for the tournament? Or would it be better off around Thanksgiving? Or right after Christmas? Those questions should be seen as building blocks, not excuses to back out.

If the event was held at the XL Center, wouldn’t it be the perfect time for the state to step up and provide the big building rent free? The state and CRDA has invested in plenty of projects over the years. The Rangers are paid an AHL affiliation fee in excess of $1 million a year. The state bought the rights of the Connecticut Open to save state tennis in 2013 before finally relinquishing them to China a few weeks ago.

Unlike the Beanpot, the schools aren’t all within a half-dozen miles of each other with a major league building in the middle of them. Sacred Heart is 80 miles from UConn. Quinnipiac is only eight miles from Yale and sometimes Yale has made it sound like 800. We get it. Harvard’s the rival. Yet the two raucous campus games between the Bulldogs and Bobcats are annual marvels. They also remain an undervalued gem statewide.

What I am saying is, if the media gave half as much attention to this annual tournament as it did to the Connecticut Open it would be a great jolt of interest.

What I also am saying is, if hockey clinics and other corporate-sponsored youth events were made part of this weekend, especially at a place like XL with so much exhibition space, it would be an investment in our kids.

You take it slow. You see what works. Get ready for this: You cooperate with each other. Great hockey memories can be made in a heartbeat. One great memory leads to another and state kids start growing up wanting to play in a special tournament.

They grow up to say the damnedest things. Like I wish I could play in this tournament every year until I die.