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While the announcement Wednesday that the 2009 Connecticut 6 tournament will take place on Nov. 13 at the Arena at Harbor Yard before moving for the next two years to the Mohegan Sun Arena, I asked Fairfield University athletic director Gene Doris if there’s a chance Harbor Yard could host the tournament in 2012 or beyond

Here’s his response:

“There’s a process that we’re going to do in terms of evaluation after Year 2. We’ll have had a chance to see it down here (at Harbor Yard) and a chance to see it at Mohegan Sun and then we’re going to try and improve the event each year and keep it going beyond the first three-year commitment,” Doris said.

Meaning … maybe. But Doris wasn’t about to commit to anything. Just like he refused to commit to whether or not Farifield-Sacred Heart would play at the Arena in 2011. Next year the game will be at the Mohegan Sun as part of the 2010 Connecticut 6 tournament.

“A lot of that still has to be worked though, in terms of everybody putting their schedules together,” he said. “Like I told you initially when we were kind of talking about this concept, having everybody cleared on conference schedules and things along that line, it’s a lot more difficult that I even thought it would be. And avoiding being on a date when other schools have hockey, you just go down the line of things that you don’t even think about when you’re putting an event together. So I think a lot of that will be looked at as we go and evaluate all of this going forward.”

So, are you going to keep playing the Pioneers?

“It’s been a great game for both schools, so I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Doris said. “It’s tough to look that many years down the road. When it comes down to it, obviously, we figured out a way to do that this year, so …”

But isn’t this the last year of your three-year contract?

“I can’t go into details but it’s not the last year …” Doris said.

Sounds like the Stags and Pioneers have a future but who knows where it will be.

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The first Connecticut 6 tournament will be held at the Arena at Harbor Yard on Friday, Nov. 13, it was announced today at a press conference at the Bridgeport Holiday Inn. Fairfield University athletic director Gene Doris made the formal announcement, flanked by his head coach, Ed Cooley and the head coaches and ADs from Yale, Quinnipiac, Hartford, Central Connecticut and Sacred Heart.

Here’s the schedule:

5:30 p.m. — Sacred Heart vs. Yale

7:30 p.m. — Fairfield vs. Central Connecticut

9:30 p.m. — Quinnipiac vs. Hartford

Tickets are $12 for adults and $5 for students. For more information, contact any one of the six schools.

I spoke with all six of the head coaches and here’s what they had to say:

Dan Leibovitz, Hartford
“To me, when I took the job at Hartford, I started thinking about it then. Not that this was my idea, but coming from Philadelphia where we had the Big Five, so I couldn’t imagine why it wasn’t in place (here.) I’m very excited about it. It’s great for the fans, great for the students, who can come down here early in the year and be excited about our team and for our student-athletes, who get to play in some great venues against great competition. It’s a special feeling, so I think its makes sense for all the right reasons and it’s a win-win situation. I’m very excited about it. You’ve got some good coaches in that room and programs that are headed in the right direction. It’s going to be a great event.”

Howie Dickenman, Central Connecticut
“It’s usually very difficult to get a group of people to agree on anything. Here, you have six athletic directors all agreeing to do the same thing. Everyone’s on the same page, everyone wants to make this a success and I think this has success written all over it. It’s going to be a terrific, terrific evening. This is going to start the college basketball season in the state, we’re going to have three very competitive games. I’m really pleased with the amount of people that are here. The room is full, it’s almost too small. You have every head coach here, every athletic director here. I think will pick up steam and continue to grow and grow.”

Ed Cooley, Fairfield
“I was very excited, but more for what we can build for Connecticut basketball. I respect the hell out of the University of Connecticut, I think they’ve earned everything they’ve gotten but I think sometimes, the other schools are lost in the shuffle. This is something that, under one building, no matter where it’s played, it gives the schools the opportunity to showcase their players, their coaching talents and it’s a credit to all the AD’s coming together and agreeing to this. I’m very excited about this. The AD’s came together, had a goal, had a vision and they made it work. I think this Connecticut 6 thing opens a lot of doors for us and opens the college basketball season with a bang.”

Dave Bike, Sacred Heart
“When you think of it, you think of the Palestra and the Big Five and all that, and I think in time, this could be like that. We can get some interest right at the beginning and get some rivalries going. It’s good. We still have one game left to complete (on our 2009-10 schedule) and it’s been really, really hard to find a date, so for them (the athletic directors) to do what they did … I didn’t believe that they were going to be able to put this together this year but they put together so I tip my hat to them.”

James Jones, Yale
“It’s kind of hard to put this at the level of the Big Five but I feel like we can have our own thing and that would be great because Connecticut basketball is not something that people think about nationally, or even regionally. So this may give us a little more attention and put us in a different light.”

Tom Moore, Quinnipiac
“I think what happened was sometimes it takes six like-minded, open-minded athletic directors. If you look at the symmetry of it, there’s an even number of schools other than UConn in the state and if you have one person, president or athletic director that’s not open-minded and doesn’t like the idea, that blows a pretty big hole in the chances of it happening. This has probably been thrown out there through the media and athletic directors like for a number of years now and I think that the fact we have six athletic directors that were excited about it, it came to fruition.
“This gives us a shot to make a good first impression on the first weekend of college basketball, separate of UConn and outside of their shadow for a night and its great. It’s huge. We have to come up with ideas like this in order to get ourselves promoted and marketed, so it’s long overdue.”

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The blog is back …the blog is back!

Yes friends, after spending the last month or so putzing around doing all kinds of local stuff and letting the poor old blog gather dust, I come roaring back with big, big news: The Connecticut 6 tournament is a “go.”

There is still a lot of work to be done but several sources have told the Connecticut Post that the state’s other six Division I men’s basketball teams (sorry, UConn) will meet in a one-day, triple-header the weekend of November 13-15 at the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport with the games as follows:

Fairfield vs. Central Connecticut
Yale vs. Sacred Heart
Quinnipiac vs. Hartford.

The Mohegan Sun Arena was originally supposed to host the tournament but was unable to this season due to a scheduling conflict. The Mohegan Sun Arena is expected to host the event in 2010 and in future years

Stags athletic director Gene Doris has allegedly been the mastermind behind the formation of the tournament and has spent the last couple of months working hard to get everything finalized. Doris would not comment on the event but did acknowledge that final details were still being worked out to try and get all six teams to agree to participate in the tournament.

Among the details being still being worked out are financial agreements for each team, future tournament schedule rotation and the possibility of having the six women’s basketball teams also take part in the tournament, starting in 2010. There is still much to do, but according to sources close to the Post, a press conference to announce the Connecticut 6 tournament is expected within the next couple of weeks.

The rotation will change in 2010, with the games becoming more of a regional matchup. Sources say that Fairfield will play Sacred Heart, Yale will play Quinnipiac and Central Connecticut will play Hartford. All these games will be at the Mohegan Sun Arena.