Who else but Providence?
That was the implied rhetorical question from Connecticut coach Heather Linstad concerning her program’s opponent as it partakes in the two-week Whaler Hockey Fest at East Hartford’s Rentschler Field. And it’s far more than a shallow case of personal nostalgia for the former Friars’ captain (class of 1989) and 19-year coaching veteran who flooded the women’s pond at UConn in 2000.
“Anything that I can do to help the game of women’s hockey; that’s obviously been the most important thing since I started coaching,” she said. “It is nice to give my alma mater a little chance to play outdoors, but certainly for our program, it’s exciting for our student-athletes.”
Potentially ditto for women’s hockey advocates. When the Friars and Huskies lock twigs at 4 p.m. Sunday in history’s third Division I women’s outdoor game, they will aim to put a time-honored and publicity-affluent Big East basketball rivalry in a new context for a new demographic to see.
Representing the only two Big East schools to compete in the same hockey conference –men’s or women’s- personnel from both sides hope the open air will haul in new zealots for their programs, and maybe even a few new general enthusiasts for their sport.
“I hope that does help,” said Linstad. “Hopefully, people in New England will pick up on it and understand it and enjoy the rivalry because it is a Big East thing, and right now I think (Providence head coach Bob Deraney) and I have made it kind of a Hockey East thing.”
Ironically, this weekend’s home-and-home series coincides with the hoopsters of both genders renewing the Battle for Southern New England. The otherworldly UConn women’s basketball team annihilated their PC counterparts, 68-38, on Saturday at precisely the same time that the Skating Friars squeaked past Linstad’s pupils, 2-1, a five-minute stroll away at Schneider Arena. Meanwhile, Sunday’s outdoor bout figures to end an hour before a 7 p.m. tip-off between the schools’ men’s basketball squads at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs.
On the Providence campus, the gravity of the women’s hoops game was such that the athletic department, which ordinarily allows spectators to buy tickets and stroll right in on a walk-in basis, sold out the 2,137-seat Alumni Hall days in advance. And any time the male cagers square off, students from the visiting institution will either board a bus and boldly venture into enemy environs or just crowd their own campus’ sports bar and pray the fire marshal doesn’t pass by.
But whereas the basketball rivalry is based far more on geography than on-court unpredictability, Linstad and Deraney have enjoyed a regular share of titanic tilts since the Huskies burgeoned to contender’s status circa 2004-05. That year, Connecticut made its first appearance in the WHEA championship, but fell short as the Friars rounded out their four-year pennant dynasty.
More recently, the teams have met in each of the last three postseasons, meaning there is not a single active veteran player in either program who has let a year go by without a do-or-die bout with one another. And they will enter Sunday’s game a point apart in the Hockey East standings, PC having just pole-vaulted over UConn to claim third place Saturday.
“I think the Big East-Hockey East rivalry is really good, and we’re not afraid to piggyback off of the Big East rivalry between UConn and Providence,” said Deraney.
“In fact, I think that was what made this, all of a sudden, a rivalry because UConn has only had (women’s) hockey for the last 11 years. How do you get a rivalry in 11 years? I really think it has to do with the fact that UConn and Providence have been playing each other in all other sports a lot longer than 11 years. So it just became a natural rivalry and we’re excited about that.
“This women’s ice hockey rivalry has heated up pretty quickly because of all the other sports that competed on the field or court before we got here.”
And now, for one day, the pucksters themselves shall take their competition out to a field. What that does to heat up the vigor outside the playing surface will be solely up to the bystanders.
“I just think people should come to a game and realize how well our student-athletes are playing and how competitive they are,” Linstad said.
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond The Dashers
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