I opened the Sports section of the Hartford Courant this morning and I was
absolutely dumbfounded!!!  There was something there I thought I would
NEVER EVER see!  On page two was a three-column wide by five inch high
advertisement for tonight's UConn Rink grand opening and hockey game
against AIC.  Right there next to the men's basketball blue-white scrimmage
and the Big East women's soccer tournament ads.
 
        What an incredible difference a year makes!  Last year in January after
UConn got hammered in a pair of games out at Air Force,  I wrote in
HOCKEY-L and HOCKEY3 that since UConn's record year in 1990-1991 their
program had gradually lost competitiveness due to the lack of a modern
building in which to play.   That Bruce Marshall's hard work and
personality could only take the recruiting effort so far.  And I laid the
blame squarely on the Athletic Department,  and A.D. Lew Perkins in
particular,  who had once again postponed the long promised new UConn rink.
 In fact,  the mood in hockey rinks around central Connecticut at the time
was uniformly glum that anything would ever get done due to Perkins
perceived love affair with basketball and the idea of 1-A football.
 
        I am not so naive to think that my posting had any effect (we are talking
about an imperial presence here, folks:-):-),  but within a fortnight there
was Perkins on Connecticut CPTV during a women's basketball half-time.
  This was a game the women sold out (as usual, 15,000+),  at the Hartford
Civic Center and lot of folks heard what Perkins had to say.   And what he
said,  among other things,  was that UConn would have a new rink in time
for next season.  I thought to myself at the time that it would be pretty
difficult to back out of that statement.
 
        The rest is history.  Within two weeks of the final game last year,  there
wasn't a trace on the ground of the old facility.   Tonight we'll see a
game in the new barn.   Quite remarkable the short cycle in which this
transformation got done.   Which just goes to prove that the movers and
shakers of the world can make things happen almost instantaneously when
they really want to.   Let me say this here and now:  my hat is off to you,
 Lew Perkins.   You (and many others, of course) made it happen and I was
too harsh last January.
 
        Last night's tie against AIC in Springfield was the perfect set-up to
tonight's game.  No matter where they have been in the standings,  Gary
Wright's team rises up to play an A++ game against their former travel
partner,  UConn.  UConn hasn't beaten them in something like three years.
 The game tonight is going to be a war,  which is only fitting.
 
        In closing,  let me say that this has been a remarkable Fall season to be
a UConn fan.   All their (established) D-1 teams have been highly ranked
nationally.   The men's soccer team spent most of the season undefeated and
#1 and are currently eighth, women's soccer is second or third,  field
hockey fourth or fifth after a long run in second,  football is around
tenth in 1-AA with the legislature poised to build a stadium for the move
to 1-A,  men's basketball is preseason #2 in most polls,  #1 in others,
 and women's basketball is #3.   That is pretty remarkable and may not
happen again for a long time.   But we are enjoying the moment right now,
 thank you.  And we're going to have a FANTASTIC time tonight.
 
        -- Dick Tuthill
 
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