The second Travelers Championship will be in the same time frame, but it will have a different look this year at the TPC River Highlands in Cromwell. n The most notable change will be a $5 million, state-of-the-art practice range to the north of the course, the cornerstone of a long-range plan to lure more of the marquee players on the PGA Tour. n Hunter Mahan, one of the tour’s top young players, will defend his title June 19-22. Phil Mickelson, ranked No. 2 in the world, was scheduled to play in the first Travelers Championship but withdrew after injuring his wrist practicing for the U.S. Open. He has pledged to return to the event in which he’s the only repeat champion (2001-02), which was previously sponsored by Buick.
The Travelers and Greater Hartford Jaycees also have made several changes to enhance the fans’ experience, including expanded concession areas and the return of the expo tent, which was eliminated last year because of the construction of a new practice facility. There also will be a demo day at the new range on Tuesday, June 17, when fans will be able to try out clubs and hit balls where the pros will practice the rest of the week.
Officials said they hope that the changes will continue to increase attendance and charity dollars. In 2007, the tournament drew about 225,000 fans and raised $650,000.Elsewhere around the state sports scene:
XL CENTER
The 33-year-old Hartford Civic Center was renamed the XL Center in November.
The Wolf Pack, the top affiliate of the NHL’s Rangers, play 40 games there. The team has made the AHL playoffs every year since the Rangers moved the franchise to Hartford in 1997.Ken Gernander, the Wolf Pack’s only captain in their first eight seasons, is in his first year as coach after two years as an assistant to Jim Schoenfeld, who remains the team’s general manager but moved to New York and is also assistant GM of the Rangers.The XL Center’s other major occupants are the UConn men’s and women’s basketball teams, who split their home games between Hartford and Gampel Pavilion on the campus in Storrs. The XL Center, where the capacity for basketball is 16,294, will again host the Big East Conference women’s tournament March 8-11. Hartford has been the home for the tournament since 2004.
A ticket package for all 11 games is $99 ( www.hartfordciviccenter.com).
Sports entertainment shows that have been scheduled include the Harlem Globetrotters on March 21 and Stars on Ice with former Olympic and world champions on April 4.
RENTSCHLER FIELD
After selling out every game in 2006, numbers were slightly down for the UConn football team at Rentschler Field in 2007. There were sellout crowds of 40,000 for four Big East games against Louisville, South Florida, Rutgers and Syracuse, but the team was unable to sell out its three nonconference games in East Hartford against Maine, Temple and Akron. Average attendance was 38,205, with a season-low of 33,810 for the Sept. 15 game against Temple.
Northland AEG took over management of the facility from Madison Square Garden on July 1.
“The transition from MSG to AEG was seamless,” said Northland AEG general manager Marty Brooks. “There was not anything noticeable to the attendees. I’m optimistic that with AEG’s experience and worldwide connections in soccer and in international events and concerts, that’s going to help to attract more events to the stadium … hopefully, some events that we have not seen before.”
UConn will host six games at Rentschler in 2008, welcoming Big East opponents West Virginia, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and nonconference foes Hoftstra, Baylor and Virginia. UConn is expected to open against Hofstra on Aug. 30. Brooks said that the rest of the schedule for 2008 at Rentschler is still a work in progress.
AUTO RACING
Waterford Speedbowl, one of three short tracks in the state that hosts NASCAR-sanctioned stock car racing, was saved from foreclosure in July when track owners secured new financing for the facility on the day the property was scheduled to be auctioned by the former mortgage holders.
Waterford, Stafford Motor Speedway and Thompson International Speedway are scheduled to host weekly events from April through October.
As part of its revitalization program, Lime Rock Park in Salisbury began The Club at Lime Rock Park last season. A 50-year membership to the club, which gives members exclusive access to the sports car track throughout the year, is $110,000.
MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
The state’s two Eastern League affiliates will open the 2008 season with new managers and new playing fields.
Bobby Cuellar, 55, a resident of Alice, Texas, takes over for the New Britain Rock Cats, replacing two-year manager Riccardo Ingram, the new hitting instructor with the parent Minnesota Twins Triple A affiliate in Rochester, N.Y. Cuellar was the bullpen coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates the past two seasons.
The Rock Cats and the city have installed a new field and drainage system at New Britain Stadium that will be ready for the team’s season opener April 3 against Portland. The Rock Cats set a team record for average attendance (5,341) last season.
Bien Figueroa, 44, a resident of Tallahassee, Fla., will manage the Connecticut Defenders, replacing Shane Turner, the Giants’ new director of minor league instruction. Figueroa spent the past 11 years in the Orioles organization, most recently as a bench coach with the Bowie Baysox.
The Defenders have installed a new field of Kentucky blue grass at Dodd Stadium in Norwich, where the team opens the season April 3 against New Hampshire. The Defenders averaged 3,003 a game last season, the franchise’s highest total since 2002, under first-year general manager Charlie Dowd, who also is overseeing stadium restroom improvements that will be completed in May.
The Defenders’ contract with the San Francisco Giants expires after this season. The contract can be renewed but not broken during the season under minor league baseball rules.
“Come September we’ll sit down with the Giants and take it from there,” Dowd said. “We’ve had some very good discussions.”
PILOT PEN
James Blake, who grew up in Fairfield, has won two of the past three men’s titles and has become the face of the New Haven tournament.
This year’s tournament is Aug. 15-23 at the Connecticut Tennis Center. The tournament, part of the U.S. Open Series, is coming off a year when it drew 94,639 fans and culminated with Blake’s beating close friend Mardy Fish in a prime-time final that drew 7,510.
The women’s draw attracted only two of the top 10 players in the world last year. Serena Williams had committed but pulled out with a thumb injury. The tournament was won by Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Tournament director Anne Worcester will again be pitching her tournament to top players in the coming months. As the last tournament before the U.S. Open, the Pilot Pen offers an opportunity for players to tune up close to New York. Among those who have played in New Haven in recent years are Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin, Amelie Mauresmo and four-time winner Venus Williams.
Last year’s attendance at the Pilot Pen was slightly down from 2006 (99,136) and 2005 (100,375).
NCAA WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT
After the Big East tournament ends in Hartford, the UConn women’s basketball team will move on to Bridgeport’s Arena at Harbor Yard to begin its pursuit of a sixth national championship with first- and second-round games in the NCAA Tournament on March 23 and 25.
This will be the third time that the Huskies have played postseason games at Harbor Yard. The first two rounds were played there in 2004 and served as a springboard to the Huskies’ fifth national championship, won two weeks later in New Orleans.
UConn’s Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games were in Bridgeport in 2006, a tournament that will be remembered for the Huskies’ buzzer-beating win over Georgia and overtime loss to Duke in a game that would have sent them to another Final Four.
THE CONNECTICUT SUN
The WNBA’s Connecticut Sun enter their sixth season at Mohegan Sun Arena this spring. Their first game is May 17 at home against the Atlanta Dream, an expansion team.
The Sun, who lost to Indiana in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs last season, will play 17 home games. The league will take most of August off while some of the players participate in the Summer Olympics in Beijing. The regular season ends Sept. 13.
The players and the league recently agreed on a six-year collective bargaining agreement that raises players’ salaries. Last July, ESPN and the WNBA agreed to an eight-year deal that begins in 2009 and gives the league rights fees for the first time.
Contact Bruce Berlet at bberlet@courant.com.
