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The NCAA has released its selections for championship sites across all sports for 2019 through 2022. While most of these are the typical spots, there are also some surprise choices in here as well.
Most notable of all is the location of the 2021 and 2022 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship: East Hartford’s Rentschler Field (PAWS ARF), home of the UConn Huskies football team.
After years of pursuing larger cities and football stadiums, it appears lacrosse is taking a step backward in going to Hartford. The 2019 and 2020 championships will be at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles. Philadelphia hosted pretty recently, in 2015 and 2016 as well. Gillette Stadium (home of the New England Patriots) in Foxboro, Mass. will host in 2017 and 2018. That venue has also hosted before.
For PAWS ARF to host seems strange, since the closest hotels are in Hartford, and again, it’s a smaller venue. Fairfield is designated the “home team” in this situation, since UConn does not support a DI men’s team.
Among the other locations most relevant to Syracuse: New York’s Madison Square Garden will host a regional in the 2020 men’s basketball tournament.
Also relevant to some recent conversations here, the NCAA has brought North Carolina back into the mix for hosting:
- Cary: 2018, 2020 Women’s Soccer College Cup; 2019, 2021 Men’s Soccer College Cup
- Greensboro: 2020 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament first/second round; 2019 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament regional; 2021 Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships
- Raleigh: 2020 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament first/second round; 2020 NCAA Women’s Golf Regional
- Winston-Salem: 2019 NCAA Women’s Field Hockey Championship
We’ve gone over the reasons behind why North Carolina lost the ability to host championships to begin with, and I’m not going to rehash the HB2 conversation further here. We have several threads that have talked about the issue at length recently -- some better than others.
But what do you think about some of these sites? The lacrosse one, particularly, seems like a poor idea, though is that just our bias?
Share your own thoughts below.