Beanpot Tournament

The Beanpot Tournament is an annual ice hockey competition held in Boston, Massachusetts, bringing together four of the city's major university hockey programs in a single-elimination format each February. Widely considered among the most celebrated collegiate sporting events in New England, the tournament has served as a defining fixture of Boston's sports calendar for decades, drawing thousands of fans to TD Garden and generating intense civic pride across the city's university communities. The event takes place over two consecutive Mondays in February and crowns a champion from among the four competing institutions, with the title carrying enormous prestige in a city that considers collegiate hockey a cornerstone of its athletic identity.

History

The Beanpot Tournament was first held in December 1952, bringing together Boston University, Boston College, Harvard University, and Northeastern University in what was then an informal holiday gathering of local college hockey teams. The event was initially conceived as a way to showcase Boston-area collegiate hockey talent and to give local fans an opportunity to watch intra-city rivalries play out on the ice during the winter season. The name "Beanpot" itself is a nod to Boston's historic association with baked beans, a culinary tradition that earned the city the nickname "Beantown," and the trophy awarded to the winning team takes the form of a ceramic beanpot, cementing the connection between the sport and the city's cultural heritage.

Over the following decades, the tournament grew from a modest holiday event into among the most anticipated fixtures on the New England sports calendar. By the 1960s and 1970s, the Beanpot had moved to February, where it became entrenched as a midwinter tradition. Attendance grew steadily, and the event eventually found a permanent home at the Boston Garden before later moving to the TD Garden following that arena's opening in 1995. The tournament's growth reflected the broader expansion of collegiate hockey culture in Boston, a city that produces a disproportionate share of the nation's college hockey talent and commands a deeply engaged fanbase for the sport at every level.^[1]

The tournament format has remained largely consistent throughout its history. The four teams compete in two semifinal games on the first Monday of February, with the winners advancing to the championship game and the losers meeting in a consolation match on the second Monday. This compact structure creates a concentrated burst of hockey action that local fans anticipate eagerly, and the back-to-back Monday scheduling has become a beloved quirk of the event's identity. The format ensures that all four programs remain invested across both evenings, and consolation games have historically been competitive affairs that carry their own sense of pride and consequence.

Culture

The Beanpot Tournament occupies a singular place in the cultural life of Boston's university communities. For students, alumni, and fans affiliated with the four competing schools, the tournament functions as much more than a sporting event — it is an annual assertion of institutional identity and neighborhood pride. Each of the four programs draws from distinct communities within the city, and their rivalries carry histories measured not just in wins and losses but in decades of shared urban proximity. The competition between Boston University and Boston College, for example, has long been characterized as one of the fiercest intra-city rivalries in collegiate athletics, with both programs boasting strong alumni networks and dedicated fan bases that extend well beyond current student populations.^[2]

The tournament also serves as a showcase for hockey in a city that has historically claimed a special relationship with the sport. Boston's universities have collectively produced a remarkable number of professional players, Olympic athletes, and coaches, and the Beanpot provides an early-season stage on which future stars often announce themselves to wider audiences. The games are broadcast regionally and attract coverage from outlets across New England, amplifying the tournament's reach beyond the arena and into living rooms, bars, and dormitories across the metropolitan area. This media presence has helped cement the Beanpot's reputation as a cultural institution rather than merely a sporting competition.

Beyond the games themselves, the Beanpot has become associated with a set of rituals and traditions that reinforce its status as a rite of winter in Boston. Students line up for tickets in the cold, alumni return to the city specifically to attend, and local sports media devotes significant coverage to previewing, analyzing, and revisiting the results. The tournament's simplicity — four local teams, two nights, one trophy — is part of its enduring appeal. In an era of increasingly complex and commercialized collegiate athletics, the Beanpot retains a relatively intimate character that resonates with fans who value the sense of community it fosters.

Attractions

The games themselves are the central attraction of the Beanpot weekend, but the surrounding environment at TD Garden adds to the overall experience. The arena, located in the West End neighborhood adjacent to North Station, is easily accessible by public transit and sits within walking distance of numerous bars, restaurants, and hotels that cater to the influx of fans each February. The concentration of fan activity in the hours before and after games creates a distinctive atmosphere in the surrounding streets, particularly along Causeway Street, where establishments fill with supporters from all four schools mixing in close quarters.

The Beanpot also draws visitors to the broader city of Boston during what is otherwise a quieter period of the winter tourism calendar. Hotels in the vicinity of the arena and across the downtown area report elevated occupancy during Beanpot weekends, and the event contributes to the local economy in ways that extend beyond ticket sales. Restaurants, transportation services, and retail businesses in the vicinity of the participating universities all experience increased activity during tournament week, as alumni travel from across the country to attend or as local fans organize gatherings around game broadcasts.^[3]

For visitors to Boston who are unfamiliar with the tournament, attending a Beanpot game offers an accessible and affordable introduction to live collegiate hockey in one of the sport's most storied cities. The atmosphere inside TD Garden during Beanpot games is notably intense compared to typical regular-season collegiate matchups, with student sections from all four schools present and vocal throughout. The relatively small scale of collegiate hockey compared to professional sports means that fans are often seated close to the ice, creating a sense of immediacy and connection to the action that distinguishes the event from larger professional spectacles.

Getting There

TD Garden, the home of the Beanpot Tournament, is among the most accessible major sports venues in New England. The arena sits directly atop North Station, one of the busiest transit hubs in Massachusetts, serving both the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) commuter rail network and the Green and Orange Lines of the MBTA subway system. This positioning makes TD Garden reachable from virtually every corner of the greater Boston metropolitan area without the need for a private vehicle, and public transit is the strongly recommended mode of arrival for Beanpot attendees given the limited and expensive parking options in the surrounding neighborhood.^[4]

For fans traveling from outside the immediate Boston area, South Station and Back Bay Station provide connections to Amtrak intercity rail service, with frequent MBTA connections from those hubs to North Station. Logan International Airport, located across the Inner Harbor from downtown Boston, is served by the MBTA Silver Line, which connects to the subway network and allows airport arrivals to reach TD Garden via public transit with a single transfer. For those who do choose to drive, numerous parking garages are located within several blocks of the arena, though prices are substantially higher during major events than on ordinary evenings.

History

Culture

Attractions

Getting There

See Also