When the puck drops at 7 p.m. Friday at Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Mass., it will mark the first time historic rivals Boston College and Boston University face off as the top two ranked teams in the country. Catching a game at the sold-out home-and-home series, taking place on back-to-back nights, will cost you: Ticket broker inventory shows dozens of seats in the $300 to $500 range, with one optimistic BU fan offering a pair of corner ice seats for $57,136 a piece.
Ticket prices aside, the battle of the two private universities, located less than three miles apart along Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue, is a sign of the resurgence of enthusiasm for college hockey nationwide: After a 15% rise in attendance last year across all top-division men’s programs, most schools are reporting another sizeable increase this year at just about the season’s halfway point.
“The excitement for a college hockey game is unique and unmatched…the hockey is skilled, fast-paced and intense with school pride on the line every night,” said Rob Striar, president of M Style Marketing, which consults on strategy with ECAC hockey schools, as well as other sports organizations like the NHL.
Like many college sports, hockey was seeing a slump in in-person attendance, especially by students, ahead of the pandemic. While the absence of fans during COVID could’ve solidified the trend, a lot of work to get games in front of people during that period and promote in-game attendance afterward has reversed the decline, said Hockey East associate commissioner Brian Smith.
“In many of my conversations, what I’ve learned is that the lessons in trying to reach the students on campus during that pandemic year have come in handy,” said Smith. “Being creative in that way has both driven interest in the games and teams themselves and increased the awareness of the accessibility of those games. When we finally came back in the fall of 2021 with relaxed restrictions, there were two years of students on campus who had never seen a game live in person. A few schools sold out their first games back, and we’ve taken that momentum and run with it.”
In Hockey East, where both BC and BU compete, the league is reaping the benefits of pushing to stream more games without fees during the pandemic and boosting production values—including more games with multiple cameras and professional announcers. During the pandemic, Hockey East was able to show more than 100 games on Fenway Sports Group-owned network NESN. These days, ESPN+ broadcasts about 300 men’s and women’s league games annually in a six-year deal struck in 2022, in addition to at least 38 men’s and women’s game on NESN this season.
The increased TV presence seems to have helped in-person interest. Already this season, all 11 schools in Hockey East have sold out at least one game, believed to be a first before the season’s halfway mark, tallying 33 sellouts so far compared to 19 all last season.
It probably helps that traditional powers BU, Maine and BC are back atop the standings, too. After a mediocre 2022-23 season, No. 2 BC in particular has seen a resurgence in attendance. Its first home game, against independent Long Island University, drew a record 40% of the school’s undergraduates to the stands, helping BC lead the nation in average attendance increase this season to 6,953. That puts the Jesuit school fourth in the nation behind traditional western power North Dakota (11,637 average) and the Big Ten’s Minnesota (9,699) and Wisconsin (8,847). According to data from College Hockey Inc., 22 of the 62 teams playing top-tier hockey have seen a 10% or greater uptick in fans in seats, with 58% of schools up overall. That comes after last season, when three-quarters of schools saw attendance rise, led by Arizona State.
Taking the longer view, the rise in attendance is probably also due to the rise in player quality. College hockey used to be the domain of players overlooked by the NHL draft where even a Hobey Baker Award winner for the country’s best player might only get a cup of coffee in the NHL.
That’s changed. “College hockey has some of the most exciting players and stars coming out of these leagues,” Striar said. “Most have played junior hockey and have had extra time to develop, and their talent and intensity carries through into the off-ice product.”
The BC-BU games are a prime example of the improved talent pool. The top-ranked Terriers have 14 players who have been drafted by the NHL, including first-rounder Tom Willander, a Swedish defenseman. BC also has 14 picks on its roster, headlined by Philadelphia’s currently most-hated player, Cutter Gauthier, a first-round pick of the Flyers who pushed for a trade of his rights to Anaheim two weeks ago. BC also features a freshman line of Will Smith, Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault, a trio picked fourth, eighth and 23rd last NHL draft who helped lead the U.S. to the IIHF World Junior Championship in Sweden to start 2024.
It’s not new that BC and BU are playing big games—the pair played in the 1978 national championship game (before hockey rankings) and often battle for bragging rights in Boston’s Beanpot Tournament with Harvard and Northeastern universities. But Friday’s faceoff has Boston feeling like the hub of the college hockey universe.
“This weekend is going to be something special, for sure,” said Hockey East’s Smith. “As a 2012 BC grad who grew up a BU hockey fan, I’m so happy to see this stage.”
