Union College Hockey to Play Outdoors

According to the Times Union, the Union College Men's hockey team will play their January 13th game against Harvard from Boston's Fenway Park.  

The men of Union College hockey are busy readying themselves for this season's third game against cross-town and chief rival R.P.I.  They've already beaten the Engineers twice, by a combined score of 10-1, and followed those wins by beating perennial power house Michigan 4-0 in Ann Arbor.  By all accounts it has been a big season for the Dutchmen who find themselves ranked ninth in the country according to a December 4th USA Today/American Hockey Magazine poll.

Certainly then, they were the perfect choice to be ECAC rival Harvard's opponent in a January 13th game from the infield of Fenway Park...Or maybe they were the perfect choice because the two already had a game scheduled for that day in Cambridge.  I can't be sure, but let's go with the first one - it's a nicer story.  Regardless, for what ever reason, following an opening act of division three teams Babson and Norwich, Harvard and Union will renew their rivalry in an outdoor setting for the first time in ECAC history.

The game will be just one in a string of events known as 'Frozen Fenway.'  The festival, which will run for the better part of the January, will feature high school and college games as well as free skate activities.  Ticket information can be found on the Fenway Park Website.  Frozen Fenway won't be the first time hockey has come to Fenway, though.  The NHL's 2010 Winter Classic featured a Flyers-Bruins matchup from the historic park.

So as the Dutchmen prepare for Saturday's matchup with R.P.I., they most certainly do so with an eye toward January 13th.  It is, after all, a chance to be thrust into the national spotlight, an attention that so routinely alludes college hockey until it's Frozen Four championship in the spring.  Good luck to Union.

Information from Sean Martin's article in the Times Union contributed to this column.