Fenway Park: A Boon to College Hockey

What BU/BC at Fenway Means for College Hockey

BU's next playing field?



By Chris Aliano
After weeks of speculating, hoping, dreaming and crying myself to sleep night after night, longing for the affirmation that had been put off for so long, it has at long last been confirmed that the Boston University men’s ice hockey team will be squaring off against their archrivals from down the block, Boston College, within the frozen confines of Fenway Park on Friday, January 8th, 2010.

First reported by the Boston Herald last Thursday, and now reflected on USCHO.com as well as the BU athletics website, what was once a farfetched notion has become reality. It is now officially safe to start booking your hotels and putting some cash aside for what will surely be one of college hockey’s most memorable weekends, and not solely for schools on Comm Ave! As was previously rumored, a second Hockey East contest will also be played that evening, one pitting the women’s squads of Northeastern University and the University of New Hampshire against one another in an earlier game before BU and BC square off at 8 p.m.

A college-hockey lover’s greatest fantasy finally realized, or something much greater?


Two months before either team takes the ice to kick off the 2009-10 season, you can already feel the magnitude of this announcement. The strongest advocates for a college hockey showcase at Fenway have finally had their voices heard, and the end result promises to be one of the most unique, vastly watched and widely appreciated sporting events of 2010. And as anyone involved in the scheduling of the event could surely tell you, this did not happen overnight.

First things first, my hat’s off to Hockey East and Commissioner Joe Bertagna (Hockey East's longest tenured commissioner) for making this happen. Bertagna is originally from Massachusetts, playing high school hockey in Arlington, college hockey at Harvard and eventually becoming a goaltending coach with the Bruins. As if Hockey East needed a better image, what with the past two national champions coming from within the conference (BC in ’08, BU in ’09), the Fenway showdown establishes the conference as the best of the best in college hockey. Bertagna’s new precedent has put Hockey East in a class of its own, with every other conference playing catch-up from here on out.

Of course, if not for the higher-ups within the Red Sox organization, specifically the grounds crew and those who will be responsible for setting up and preparing the facilities that night, then this deal would’ve never gone down. The idea of college hockey at Fenway has been pitched before, but it wasn’t until now that all sides involved were able to come to an agreement and make this an actuality. To say it speaks volumes for the class of the Red Sox and every school involved is an understatement, especially considering the good this will do for the sport in general.

Lastly, the athletic directors from every school in the conference deserve their acknowledgement, but none more so than Mike Lynch from BU and Gene DiFillippo of BC. The fact of the matter is, DiFillippo essentially gave up a home game at Conte Forum in order for this event to work out in terms of scheduling. BC was slated to host BU twice this season; instead, the game at Fenway will count toward one of the Eagles’ two home contests. Likewise, the rest of the AD’s from the conference had to probably agree to some schedule reshuffling within this season and the seasons after to accommodate for BC’s “sacrifice.”

So in reality, it’s a home game apiece for the two schools, and BC’s “other home game” would be played at Fenway, in theory considered a “neutral site,” but right now, who’s to say what school’s fans will outnumber the others? Fans of college hockey in general will flock to Fenway in bunches, and if the Frozen Four in D.C. was any indication of just how large that fan base spans, it’s safe to assume that the 25,000+ seats at Fenway will be filled not only by factions of the schools involved, but supporters of college hockey from across the country.

And let’s be honest, this is a sport that needs all the publicity it can afford at the moment. Last year’s national championship game was a start, but this may be the push that really puts college hockey back on the map and makes the sport as relevant as more widely renowned college sports. This is especially meaningful during an era in which smaller schools and programs with less prestigious histories are struggling to survive. Look at Bowling Green, a once-proud program with a national championship under its belt. Recent economic turmoil and subpar results on the ice spelt doom for the Falcons, but advocates and alums rallied to keep the storied program on the ice.

I’m not saying that this event will right everything that is wrong with college hockey, but it’s certainly pointing it in the right direction. Think about it: so many young, talented prospects opt to play in Europe or in Canadian leagues rather than choosing the American college route on their way to the NHL. Countless others (Hello Brian Strait!) opt out of their collegiate pact long before they probably should, just to get some ice time in the American Hockey League. Now they’re going to see their peers play on (hopefully, though no TV schedule has been confirmed) national television, on one of the United States’ most widely recognized sporting stages as archrivals spill their heart and soul onto the ice in an attempt to best their foe.

Wouldn’t that get these kids thinking:

“Hey, maybe college hockey isn’t so bad after all…”?


The fans of college hockey will reap the rewards of this spectacle the most, especially the small contingent of dedicated and devoted supporters of a long and storied sport. I’m banking on a packed at house at Fenway on the night of Friday the 8th, and you could bet that, among those scarlet-and-white and between those maroon-and-gold clad supporters, there will likely be a myriad of other colors, a representation of the loyal fans of a sport long overdue for some relevance.