The New Haven Coliseum, Yale University and the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) will cohost the 2004 Women's Frozen Four, the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) women's hockey championship.
The two-day event will be held in New Haven Friday and Sunday, April 9 and 11, two years from now. The semifinals will be played on Friday, with the consolation and championship tilts on Sunday. Times have not been determined.
The Frozen Four competition was launched just last year and was hosted by the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. This year's match will take place on the campus of the University of New Hampshire in Durham. Next spring the event will be hosted by the University of Minnesota in Duluth.
The 8,000-seat New Haven Coliseum, managed by SMG, has been a hockey den since it first opened its doors in 1972. While it turns 30 years old next October, the first women's hockey contest in the building was held this winter. The U.S. National Women's Hockey Team played an exhibition game on Dec. 15 and drew 3,276 for its win over Sweden.
The Yale men's hockey team has played 16 games at the Coliseum and averaged 4,579 fans. In fact, the Coliseum was the site of the largest home crowd in the history of Yale hockey, when 7,460 showed up for the Bulldogs' first game at their home away from home, the 1979 Harvard game. The Yale women's program, which began in 1977, has played all of its home games at Ingalls Rink, which seats 3,486.
"We are proud and extremely excited to be a host of a national championship," says Tom Beckett, Yale's director of athletics. "The New Haven Coliseum is an excellent venue, and we will do whatever it takes to make this a great experience for the athletes, coaches and fans."
The ECAC is the oldest and largest women's college hockey organization in the country, sponsoring four playing leagues in Divisions I and III and totaling 33 teams for the 2001-2002 season. The Elis, a member of the ECAC's Division I North, have already clinched a berth in the 2002 playoffs which are set for March 7-9. The championship will be broadcast live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and the New England Sports Network (NESN).
"We are very pleased to have the opportunity to co-host an event of this magnitude at the New Haven Coliseum, which is a first-class facility," said Phil Buttafuoco, ECAC commissioner. "Like the ECAC, the state of Connecticut has been a leader and a pioneer in women's hockey for years, and it will be exciting to showcase the best teams in women's college hockey in that atmosphere."
SMG, which manages the Coliseum, is the largest private manager of public assembly facilities with over 150 accounts worldwide. Lisa Audi, general manager of the Coliseum, says SMG and the Coliseum Authority are excited at the prospect of being the site for "such a prestigious event."
She adds, "With national television coverage, numerous out-of-town guests and college hockey's women's championship to be crowned at the Coliseum, this is a great day for the city of New Haven."
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