By Brittany Burke

The CCSU club hockey team has been forced to cancel its game against the UConn club team as part of the Hockey Fest on Feb. 19.

“We will not participate in the Whaler Fest, CCSU has released the game due to poor communication with the company that is running the Whaler Fest,” said Head Coach Ben Adams.

The 2011 Hockey Fest is the first of its kind and is set to make Connecticut hockey history. For two weeks in Feb. Whalers Sports and Entertainment, the management company of the American Hockey League’s CT Whale, is turning Rentschler Field, home of the UConn Huskies football team, into an outdoor hockey rink.

The Blue Devils were scheduled to play UConn in a non-regulation game following the CT Whale game against the Providence Bruins; however, miscommunication between the teams and Whalers Sports has lead to the game’s cancellation.

To play on the outdoor rink the teams would have had to pay a rink rental fee upward of $7,000, an amount that the hockey team does not have in its budget.

“We have backed out of the outdoor game, the Whaler Bowl, Hockey Fest, whatever you want to call it and that’s kind of frustrating and again that’s because we don’t have the money,” said hockey club treasurer, Kevin Leaver. “It costs $7,000 per team apparently to play in the outdoor game, and along with management change in Whalers Sports, we weren’t able to buy our time slot.”

As a way to ease the cost, the teams were offered by Whalers Sports the opportunity to sell passes and tickets, which would eventually pay for the rental fee. However, a change in leadership amongst the Whalers Sports organization caused a lack of communication between the company and two teams.

“In December, the management company of the Whaler Fest had changed. Since that change I have not been able to communicate with the new management team until this past week.  They wanted $7000 for the ice slot with no ticket sales.  They said we could have sold tickets to reduce the cost, however my argument has been that they did not give us the ability to sell the tickets with enough time to generate the amount of sold tickets they wanted,” said Adams.

As a result of the lack of communication, the teams were not given the opportunity to sell tickets to the student community. With no tickets and the lack of sufficient funding, the ice time could not be rented.

The Huskies were the first to pull out of the slot, followed by the CCSU Blue Devils. The game was an additional game out of the ranking period, which means it will not be made up and will not affect the Blue Devils’ standing in the American Collegiate Hockey Association.

“I am saddened by this, as this would be a great experience for the kids and a lot of fun for everyone involved.  UConn did drop the game first.”