Men’s Hockey: Terriers to Play in 2018 Friendship Four in Belfast

WTBU Sports Staff Report

On Friday, Tournament Coordinators from the annual Friendship Four in Belfast announced that Boston University would be one of four schools participating in the 2018 edition.

The Terriers will take on fellow Hockey East school UConn on Black Friday while ECAC foes Union and Yale will also do battle.

The following day will feature the tournament consolation game and final as BU will take on one of the two ECAC teams in a non-league contest. The games will be held at SSE Arena, home of the EIHL’s Belfast Giants.

“We want to make the Friendship Four in 2017 and 2018 open to all,” said Eric Porter, Chairman of the Odyssey Trust in Belfast. “And we expect that the city of Belfast will, yet again, open it’s arms to our US guests as well as be excited to see this standard of ice-hockey return to their home arena again for two more years.”

Aside from the Beanpot, the Friendship Four will be the Terriers first in-season tournament since the Shillelagh Tournament back in 2010. The Terriers fell, 6-1, to Brown in the opening round and tied host Notre Dame, 3-3, in the consolation game.

The tournament bid marks the Terriers first time ever playing in Europe and the third time the team will play outside the United States. BU’s last game abroad came in November 1967 when the Terriers won the New Brunswick Invitational at Saint Johns, N.B.

BU will face-off in Europe exactly 51 years to the weekend after last playing abroad.