AMESBURY, Mass. – The Hockey East Association and ECAC Hockey jointly announced that the 2024 Friendship Series will air on NESN+ across New England. Princeton University and Providence College will renew the event with a two-game series on January 5-6, 2024 at The SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Fans across North America will also be able to stream the games, set for 7:00 a.m. ET on Friday, Jan. 6 and 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 7, on ESPN+ and TSN+.
The weekend is part of a homestand by the Belfast Giants, the professional outfit that skates out of the SSE Arena as part of the United Kingdom’s Elite Ice Hockey League. It will mark the third iteration of the women’s college hockey event, following clashes between Clarkson and Northeastern in 2018-19 and Merrimack and Quinnipiac in 2019-20.
The Friendship Series is an extension of the Friendship Four tournament, which was devised by The Odyssey Trust in 2015, and has been developed year on year to promote education, social welfare, and community integration in Northern Ireland, building on the sister cities agreement between Belfast and Boston.
The Friendship Four tournament and Friendship Series grew out of a relationship that started when the Boston Bruins played an exhibition contest against the Belfast Giants in 2010, before going on to win the Stanley Cup that same year. The Friendship Series is the first and only NCAA Division I women’s hockey tournament to be held outside of the United States, but its roots are well and truly in Boston, Massachusetts. The Friendship theme is more than a namesake for the tournament. The event focuses on unifying communities throughout Northern Ireland by bringing a diverse group of young people from across all socioeconomic and religious backgrounds together for one event. It strives to create lasting cultural, sporting and educational partnerships between Northern Ireland and America.
The event grew out of a relationship started when the Boston Bruins played an exhibition contest against the Belfast Giants in 2010 before going on to win the Stanley Cup that same year. Boston and Belfast signed a Sister Cities agreement in 2014, designed to foster stronger economic development, trade and investment, tourism, youth, cultural, faith-based exchanges and educational linkages between the two cities, and to increase awareness of both cities as being growth cities in the connected health and life sciences, creative industries, tourism, financial services and the knowledge economy sectors.
As a result of the agreement, discussions began with the City of Boston, Hockey East and ECAC Hockey about the possibility of hosting a tournament in Belfast. The city of Belfast identified that, through their professional ice hockey team, the Belfast Giants, that hockey was the one sport where people came together, irrespective of religion of community background, in a neutral setting, to cheer for the same team.
A key focus of the Friendship Series is education, including education of youth through sports to create a spirit of mutual understanding and the spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play; an exploration of the opportunities that education can provide, both in Northern Ireland and the USA through scholarships and placements; and education linked to future job opportunities and economic success.
In parallel, the Friendship Series initiative aims to focus on social inclusion – ensuring that young people and communities from rural and urban deprived areas are engaged with education and provided with opportunities to identify relevant areas of study and future potential career paths.
