Dom Amore: With new arena, UConn’s hockey programs continue moving up in class
Mike Cavanaugh was out in the Vancouver area on a recruiting trip in August and he dialed up one of his captains, Hudson Schandor, who lives in the area.
They sat down for lunch, and talked about hunger — as in the hunger to get back to Boston and finish what the UConn men’s hockey team left unfinished last spring.
“I like their hunger to want to get back to the Boston [TD] Garden,” Cavanaugh said. “And that’s been evident to me from Day One. I had lunch with Hudson and that’s all he could talk about, That vibe, not only him but the rest of the upper class brought. After that lunch, I said, ‘Alright, we’re in a good spot.’”
The Huskies made a program breakthrough last season, winning Hockey East playoff games for the first time, reaching the conference final before losing to UMass, 2-1, in overtime. Cavanaugh couldn’t bring himself to watch the tape in full until three weeks ago. That’s how excruciatingly close they were to the NCAA Tournament. Or one more quality win along the way in the regular season might have given them a berth.
“This program has been on the rise lately,” Schandor said. “And with that comes a new set of expectations. We have a new standard, to reach that Garden every single year and be at the top of Hockey East.”
The men’s hockey team starts the new season at Vermont on Saturday, and have games at Madison Square Garden. Nov. 26 vs. Cornell, and Fenway Park, Jan. 7, vs Northeastern on the schedule. But the day everyone is circling is Jan. 14, the day the new Toscano Family Ice Forum is to open on campus. The $70 million, 2,600-seat arena was toured by reporters on Tuesday and it promises to be a cozy place, with fireplaces in both locker rooms and in the mezzanine suite. But by cozy, we mean uncomfortable for opponents, especially in the first and third periods when the student section will loom over their goalie.
“I believe that people win, not facilities,” Cavanaugh said. “That being said, do I think we’re going to attract more people to this campus, with his state-of-the-art facility, that normally wouldn’t take a visit? Yes. That is going to help us recruiting at a certain level, but the foundation we’ve built here is on tough kids who want to compete hard, have a high hockey IQ and want to be part of a program that breaks through and wins at a high level.”
The women’s program at UConn is on a similar trajectory. Last season the Huskies won 11 of their first 12 and finished 24-9-4, losing to Northeastern 3-1 in the Women’s Hockey East final and narrowly missing the 11-team NCAA Tournament. They’ve begun this season with two wins over RIT.
“There’s pressure on us,” senior captain Coryn Tormala said. “We had a record-breaking season last year. It’s also exciting for a lot of us. We lost a lot of great players, but we also gained a lot of great players.”
College hockey is growing in this area, no longer a Northern New England/Great Lakes thing. UConn has joined Yale and Quinnipiac as formidable programs in both men’s and women’s hockey, and Sacred Heart has a new arena and momentum, too. The top can be seen from here.
“UConn is a very unique place, where we have lots of programs that compete at a national level and realistically have a chance to compete for a national championship,” AD David Benedict said, with vest and hard hat, standing in the middle of the construction site. “We all see, in Hockey East, if you have a chance to compete and win the conference we play in, then you have a chance to compete for a national championship. If you talk to the other coaches who have benefited from new facilities in recent years, I think our men’s and women’s hockey programs are about to experience a level of competition and competitiveness that we’ve never seen.”
The new rink is the finishing touch among the cluster of new buildings at its end of the campus, among the new baseball, softball, soccer and lacrosse stadiums. “Big Ten facilities,” Cavanaugh called them.
Though several of the men’s hockey games will be played in Hartford, games at the on-campus arena are bound to be a happening. UConn hopes to be able to move in by the end of 2022, with the women’s team playing there first, against Merrimack on Jan. 13, and the grand opening on Jan. 14 with a doubleheader, the women playing Vermont and the men playing Northeastern.
“I’d like to say the new arena is going to impact us in a very big way,” women’s coach Chris MacKenzie said. “We want to get in there and we’re excited to be in there come January.”
The women’s team has lost several players now playing professionally but have 12 first-year players. MacKenzie is playing two goalies, Tia Chan, who took last year off to play for China in the Olympics, and Megan Warrener, both solid last week.
Cavanaugh has some big shoes to fill in goal with Darion Hanson graduated, but he has his leadership core back and a host of new players, including four transfers: forward Justin Pearson from Yale and three from Hockey East, Adam Dawe (Maine), Andrew Lucas (Vermont) and Ty Amonte (Boston University).
“Since I got here, I’ve not been afraid to talk about what my expectations are,” Cavanaugh said. “My expectation is we compete for 60 minutes every night, we start there. Then my expectations are we win league championships, then compete for national championships. Those haven’t wavered. Have they always been realistic? Probably not early on. But we’re at the point now where those are realistic expectations.”
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com
