College hockey in NHL venues

I had heard somewhere that Clarkson and Colgate were going to be playing a game up in Ottawa, and also that Princeton was going to be playing in Pittsburgh for some reason. Much like the Cornell-Colgate games at the Nassau Colliseum that were held for a couple of years in the '90s. So I did some research, and with the Clarkson-Colgate game being this week, there's plenty of press about it...Clarkson, Colgate, Corel Centre, Ottawa Tourism, and ECAC websites all have decent write-ups, explaining the connection, plugging the game, etc. There's even an NHL game following the matchup (I believe the Cornell-Colgate games were following Islander games)
[hockey.ecac.com]

Princeton is indeed playing at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, playing Ohio State on January 3. Here is the only real proof I've found outside of looking at the teams' schedule pages: [www.mellonarena.com] The most frustrating thing to me besides the lack of press is that the PU-OSU game, a NCAA Division I game, seems to be the "undercard" to a club-team matchup of Washington & Jefferson vs. Penn St. I know that anything PSU in Pennsylvania is huge, and W&J is a local school, but come on. The only reason I can think of inviting these particular two D-I teams is that they happen to be the closest to Pittsburgh and Philly, in an attempt stoke the never-ending intra-Pennsylvania rivalry. Maybe some players on the teams are from PA or something.

Even the Post-Gazette, which seems to be the main sponsor, has no real mention of it yet. Searching the Post-Gazette site gives me an article about the financial woes of the Penguins and Mellon Arena. It says that Pittsburgh might be interested in getting into the NCAA Regional/Frozen Four hosting business at some point.
[www.post-gazette.com]

Good to see that the Clarkson-Colgate matchup in Ottawa is being handled well.

I think it's a brilliant idea to play a game in Ottawa, smack in the middle of recruiting country. Hope we can do it someday -- maybe trade off home games with a North Country team for a pair of years and hold games in Toronto (are you listening, Mr. Dryden? )

Thanks for the comments and links Rich.

Just thought I'd mention that credit goes to Don Vaughn and Mark Morris for having the idea to play in Ottawa. We held a Clarkson Alumni Bd. of Govs mtg in Ottawa in Spring, 2001 and met with Mayor Chiarelli...a good guy who expressed desire in exploring all kinds of links with the University. There are others but this may be the most high profile one.

That was my first trip to Ottawa in nearly 30 years...great city with lots to do...wish I could make it this weekend.