Puck Didn't Stop Here

If the stars had lined up a bit differently, the just-passed weekend of March 26-28 would have seen the spectacle of an NCAA championship in the Elm City.
Two years ago the governing body of collegiate athletics selected Veterans Memorial Coliseum for its 2004 women's ice-hockey championship, a/k/a the "Frozen Four," to be hosted by Yale.

But because the city subsequently elected to euthanize the 30-year-old arena, the hockey championships had to be moved to the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence, R.I. (with Yale, however, still on the hook as "host," and The Hartford as title sponsor). Thus Connecticut hockey fans were deprived the opportunity to see Harvard, Dartmouth, St. Lawrence and Minnesota/Twin Cities battle on national television for distaff hockey supremacy.

(We still have our "2004 Women's Frozen Four - New Haven Coliseum" T-shirt from the 2002 press conference, and we fully expect to sell it for big bucks on eBay some day to a collector of historical oddities.)

As the city and state now duke it out over who will pay the $6 million or more it will cost to raze the Coliseum and return the real estate it sits on to productive use, it is difficult not to wonder if New Haven will get similar opportunities in the future after having blown this one.

For example, wouldn't a 15,000-seat tennis stadium that gathers dust 51 weeks a year be a good spot for the NCAA men's and women's tennis championships some year soon?

We certainly think so, and hope that the words "New Haven" haven't left a bitter taste in the mouths of NCAA decision-makers.