Harvard Crimson Hockey (ECAC Hockey) @ Bright-Landry Hockey Center (Boston, MA)

Hockey at one of America's most famous universities

*That’s right - TODAY is Harvard’s home opener (and again, it's a Tuesday); I'll get into why it's so late in a little bit. As for this post, it covers two visits that both happened in November 2023: one on the 3rd and the other on the 26th.

I’m not going to get into any specifics regarding Harvard University here given its status as ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES IN THE WORLD. I also won’t talk about Harvard Square, as its rise as a tourist destination has changed the area in ways a lot of locals believe is for the worse (besides, the sports teams are in a different city altogether, and I don’t feel there’s much to say about them either). Instead, let’s focus on Harvard Crimson hockey: the crimson-headed stepchild of the Boston hockey scene.

Okay, so maybe that’s not completely true, but they don’t exactly have either the profile of BC/BU or a historic arena like Northeastern. They’re also not in Hockey East: they’re in a conference known as ECAC Hockey (from which Hockey East sprung from 40-ish years ago)¹. Unlike Northeastern, however, they have an honest-to-God D-I national championship, which they won in 1989; they’ve also won more Beanpot titles than Northeastern (11 vs. 9), and their most recent Beanpot championship is more recent than Boston College’s last title (2017 vs. 2016)².

However...astute readers may have realized that I've yet to mention the Ivy League (the famous athletics conference associated with Harvard) in this post. That's because...the Ivy League does not TECHNICALLY have a hockey conference; instead, the Ivy League schools with D-I hockey teams (Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale) are members of the ECAC (also, ECAC is not currently an acronym³). There does exist an unofficial “championship” for Ivy League Hockey: whichever team has the best record against the others is crowned the “Ivy League Champion”.

One other quirk about the Ivy League: due to its rules limiting how long athletic schedules can be, the six Ivy League teams have notably shorter schedules than most of the rest of college hockey (with the "cut" games usually being non-conference). Case in point: the fact this post is going up on the day of Harvard's 2025-26 home opener - nearly a full month into the season (and is only their third game overall - with one of those games being an exhibition game).

Anyhoo, back to the school at hand: Harvard University’s main campus is in Cambridge, MA (I was actually born about a mile away from it), but most of their sport programs are based in a complex across the Charles River in the Allston section of Boston. In terms of their hockey arena, the Bright-Landry Hockey Center has a somewhat interesting history: it originally opened with a different name in 1956 (thus putting it in line to be the oldest hockey arena in Boston fairly soon), but was substantially renovated in the late 1970s when it received its current name (so even if we considered this to be a wholly separate building, it’ll still be the oldest "college and higher" hockey arena in Boston).

The arena feels like a giant “pit”, so to speak: I’d call it a “concourse style” building where you enter at concourse level and there's no real lobby, but with much, MUCH fewer amenities (as in just two small concession stands plus merchandise which I’ll get into a bit later). In fact, there’s an indoor track area adjacent to the hockey arena, with windows overlooking the track.

I came here twice in the fall of 2023; the first game (an "Ivy League" contest against Princeton) technically ended in a tie (though Harvard lost a shootout⁴), and the other game saw Harvard get blown out against Boston College. There was no pep band OR student section for either game (despite a "Student Section" being labeled on one of the walls - it's in the photo for those who saw it), so the two games I went to kinda lacked the same energy you get from other college games. Also, as the arena’s in the middle of Harvard’s sports complex, it’s hard to give any good food recommendations (I used to do food recommendations with these posts), as they’re relatively far removed from the arena (though there’s some interesting things in Allston proper).

The seating bowl, compared to places like UNH’s Whittemore Center (which, IMO, is the best Hockey East analogue for Harvard), is also MUCH smaller, meaning that you can basically see the ice from just about anywhere on the concourse save for the areas which you can’t - a lounge for season ticket holders as well as the merch area (more on this space below).

One more thing I should mention: in looking back at the details of these visits (to confirm their dates mainly), I realized that the second game was part of one of hockey's most famous traditions: the Teddy Bear Toss. At some point during the game, fans throw stuffed animals onto the ice; I'm not sure when and where this started, but it's become a holiday tradition around the "lower leagues" of hockey⁵. While a number of leagues (namely the Canadian Hockey League) do it after the home team scores their first goal, this one occurred during the first of two intermissions between periods (I realize I should have mentioned this a LONG TIME AGO, but hockey games are divided into 3-20 minute periods).

This was the first of three teddy bear tosses I attended in 2023 (the other two being Boston University and UNH), and the fact that I completely forgot about this, in a sense, should tell you how it was. I will note that the BU and UNH ones were definitely MUCH better though - and I recall one (or both) of them selling teddy bears to be tossed.

MERCH

Surprisingly, there’s a full fledged merchandise “store” here as opposed to a kiosk/some racks and a cash register along the concourse, which honestly feels a little crazy for a program as “small” as Harvard. Said store felt surprisingly large and had a decent selection of things; sadly, they didn’t have jerseys either time I went, and the pucks I saw were disappointing IMO so I didn’t get one, but I did get a wooden Zamboni as well as a “Hockey Hoodie” with Harvard’s logo on it.

I said I wasn’t going to talk about Harvard Square, but I do need to mention that Harvard’s bookstore (the Coop) is actually quite large and has a TON of things. Most of it is not sports related, mind you, but it’s there if you want to make people think you’re smart/wealthy/connected enough to go to Harvard.