The Utica and Oswego men’s teams will play an outdoor game on Feb. 12, 2021 at the Griffiss Business and Technology Park in Rome, N.Y.
The announcement was made in a press conference at the Adirondack Bank Center at the Utica Memorial Auditorium.
The game will be part of a weekend of premier hockey matchups featuring upstate New York rivals. The Pioneers and Lakers will face off at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12, while the Utica Comets will take on the Syracuse Crunch on Saturday, Feb. 13 as part of the weekend festivities. The events are being held as part of a larger winter festival that is currently in the works.
This will be Utica’s first true outdoor game appearance, and will be the second special event game for the Pioneers. Both have featured UC and Oswego. The two teams faced off as part of the Frozen Dome Classic at Syracuse University’s Carrier Dome in 2014. That game still holds the NCAA Division III attendance record at 7,047.
Next year’s event will present a new opportunity to reset that record, with the Comets announcing they anticipate making nearly 16,000 seats available for the weekend’s events in a temporary venue to be constructed on the Griffiss Business and Technology Park grounds.
“We’re really excited to be one of the few Division III teams to be able to participate in an outdoor game,” Utica coach Gary Heenan said in a statement. “For it to take place down the road in Rome, which has a rich hockey tradition and is the hometown of some of our guys, is going to be extra special. We’re also excited to have Oswego as our opponent. It’s always a good game whenever our teams meet and there is certainly some extra hype around this game.”
Tickets will be $10 general admission. Fans can reserve their tickets through the Adirondack Bank Center box office in person or by calling (315) 790-9070.
