Phil Esten, vice president and director of athletics at the University of St. Thomas, recently spoke to WCCO Radio about the new Lee & Penny Anderson Arena sports schedule.
From the interview:
Host: The men’s hockey team has been getting some good preseason reviews ... picked by many to win their conference.
Esten: We had a great season last year and played for the MacNaughton Cup. Expectations are a little higher with that crew. We’re bringing back a lot of the key elements there.
On the women’s side, we’ve got the number one, two, three, six and nine ranked teams in the country in that conference. And so, the Tommies on the women’s side are going to hold their own this year as well.
Host: And the arena will also be home to Tommie Basketball. I know one new wrinkle real quick: Johnnies and Tommies are going to rekindle a rivalry coming up in December.
Esten: That’ll be a lot of fun. So we open basketball season at home versus Army on Nov. 8. Again, we hope the community comes out to support what’s gonna be a really wonderful celebration of the history of Tommie Basketball. We’re going to invite Army into the arena, both women’s and men’s. We’ll host the Johnnies in December, and that was such a longtime rivalry. It means a lot to our alumni, it means a lot to both communities, so that’ll be a lot of fun.
