As UConn has explored plans to upgrade its on-campus hockey facility, the school’s focus now is on renovating its existing practice arena rather than selecting a new location and building a rink.
Athletic director Warde Manuel said UConn is looking into what needs to be done “to elevate [Freitas Ice Forum] to Hockey East standards, even if it’s not used as the competition facility.”
Built in 1998, Freitas is a dated facility that lacks amenities that have become the benchmark in NCAA Division I hockey. Its seating capacity, listed at nearly 2,000, is less than half of that required for a Hockey East school to host conference games.
UConn is still in the fundraising stage and does not have a concrete timeline for the renovations, but Manuel said he hopes to have the project complete by 2019, in keeping with an agreement with the conference. The school does not anticipate receiving taxpayer funds for the project.
Hockey East bylaws require UConn to have a more suitable on-campus facility than Freitas, and when the Huskies agreed to join the conference in 2012, the school said it would begin construction by fall 2016. But a few games into UConn’s second season in the conference, the deadline is somewhat looser, given the success of games the Huskies have hosted at the XL Center in downtown Hartford.
“We’re trying to look at meeting the needs of Hockey East as well as balancing that with playing downtown and the fan support we’ve got playing downtown, and with some of the discussion ongoing about potentially [renovating] the XL center in the future,” Manuel said.
UConn led the conference in home attendance last season, averaging 5,800 fans in 11 games at the XL Center. This year, UConn played its home opener at the XL Center Oct. 16 and defeated Arizona State 5-1 before a crowd of 4,401.
Pending approval from the UConn Board of Trustees later this month, the school’s XL lease is being renewed for three years.
“I think when we first joined Hockey East there was actually hesitation among some of the league members, how it would draw in Hartford as opposed to on campus, because traditionally college hockey is an on-campus game,” said UConn athletic department spokesman Mike Enright. “Collegiate hockey in Hartford has worked and we led the league in attendance. We saw the fan enthusiasm the first year. It’s something for us to consider.”
Even league commissioner Joe Bertagna acknowledged that if UConn were to build a state-of-the-art arena in Storrs, most home games still would be played at the XL Center. Over the past few years, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has been involved in efforts to keep home games in Hartford.
“I haven’t spoken to too many governors before,” said Bertagna, who said he has met with Malloy “a number of times,” and that the governor has a “hands on approach.”
But Bertagna also said that although the XL Center is a suitable venue for most games, the fact that it hosts a wide variety of events could present a problem. He said if UConn were to win a playoff game on a Saturday and then needed to host the following week “when the circus is in town,” that could present a problem. Even if overall attendance were to drop slightly at an on-campus game, he said, “there is excitement in a small, packed venue where tickets are hard to get.”
Bertagna also said that an on-campus facility is necessary to be able to “recruit the athletes you need to be competitive in the Hockey East.” He said the “student-athlete is a pretty smart consumer,” and has come to expect state-of-the art practice facilities.
Manuel admitted the need for an on-campus facility, as did UConn hockey coach Mike Cavanaugh.
Cavanaugh deals with both ends of the spectrum in what he can sell to recruits — a downtown arena with a vibrant game-day atmosphere in the XL Center and an outdated, on-campus practice facility with limited space and amenities in Freitas.
Now in his third season at UConn, Cavanaugh said he stresses to recruits that people, not buildings, are the foundation for a strong program.
“I do say that,” Cavanaugh said. “If I get upset about the facility every day, it’s like getting upset about a hooking call.”
As Cavanaugh spoke Thursday, players were arriving at Freitas for practice in preparation for Saturday’s Hockey East opener at Boston University’s Agganis Arena, a 7,200-capacity facility at the heart of BU’s $200-plus million student center. The arena holds many events, including concerts, and has the space and modern amenities to make it one of the best facilities in the nation.
UConn doesn’t need all that Agganis has. The Huskies do, however, need a significant upgrade to Freitas, where some team activities, such as pre-practice stretching, take place in the lobby.
“I can only control what I can control and right now this is the environment and this is the facility I have to practice in,” Cavanaugh said. “So I can choose to make this an excuse in the recruiting process or I can say we’re doing the best with what we have. If you don’t have the best, do the best with that you have, right? So that’s what we’re doing right now. Would I like a new practice facility here, or par with what our football and basketball programs have? Absolutely. Do I think that would help benefit our recruiting? Absolutely. But the fact is, I don’t have it and I know that Warde and [President Susan Herbst] and the entire administration here is working towards achieving that goal of upgrading this facility.”
UConn was 10-19-2 overall last season, and 5-2-4 at the XL. Cavanaugh, in a previous interview, described the XL atmosphere as “what I dreamed it would be.”
“I didn’t really actually think it was going to be that good,” Cavanaugh said. “We heard at our [national coaches] convention — almost unanimously, from almost every team that played at the XL Center, I heard ‘I can’t believe the atmosphere and energy you had in that building.'”
A representative from another Hockey East school, however, challenged the notion that the XL Center is an ideal venue. Maine athletic department spokesman Kohl Schultz said that while UConn games were among the most highly attended in Hockey East, “it’s one of those things that when you play in a barn that has 10,000 more seats, it’s tough to develop that atmosphere.”
The XL Center can seat 15,635 for hockey, but last year it blocked off many sections, selling roughly 8,000 for UConn games. When UConn defeated Boston College in last year’s home opener, the Huskies won before a sellout crowd of 8,089.
Maine’s on-campus arena, meanwhile, seats roughly 5,200 — but averages about 88 percent capacity and sells out for big games, Schultz said. If Maine had the opportunity to host games somewhere like the XL Center, he said, “I don’t know if we would take that opportunity, just based on how much of a crowd factor we have when we play in those small, intimate barns, when people are on top of each other.”
UConn’s overall home attendance averaged 5,396 last season, which also takes into account games at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport. Boston College was second in the league, averaging 5,221, UMass Lowell third at 5,120 and New Hampshire next at 5,058.
Courant Staff Writer Mike Anthony contributed to this story.
