New Complex Gives Field Hockey Home Advantage At Boston College

Courtesy of The Heights
Written by Tom Wiedeman
September 19, 2005

The Boston College field hockey program has seen a lot changes lately.

This season, they welcome first-year head coach Ainslee Lamb to the program.

And as with almost every other BC program, the team moves into the ACC this fall.

But the biggest change is unquestionably the shiny new field hockey-specific Newton Campus Field Hockey Complex.

For years, the squad has been a team without a home. Its primary field has been inside Alumni Stadium, playing on the hard AstroTurf® that it shared with the football team.

But with the institution of FieldTurf into the Alumni Stadium field, field hockey was no longer a possibility. The length of the new grass-like turf slowed the ball too much, negating the speed of the game.

To make due, the Eagles had to move all their home games and practices to relatively nearby Bentley College in Waltham.

Think the Newton bus is a lengthy ride? Try traveling 25 minutes to and from practice every day, as the Eagles did last year.

"[The new field] saves us a lot of time, just because we were traveling 25 minutes to and 25 minutes back," senior back Meg Palisoul said. "We couldn't even lift in season, because it took too much time to go to the field."

The Newton Campus Field Hockey Complex is a $2 million state of the art facility located adjacent to the Newton Campus soccer field.

The field is AstroTurf® to better accommodate the speed of the game, and it is surrounded by a 750-seat bleacher, digital scoreboard, and lighting system.

"It's such a good quaility field, we've played on some pretty nasty away fields," Palisoul said.

The new field makes life easier and provides numerous advantages for a team that is one of the most consistently successful BC athletic programs

The big advantage for the Eagles is the amount of time saved. With its own field on campus, the team no longer has to travel for all games and practices and doesn't have to compete with other BC teams for practice time.

"We can basically schedule practices whenever we want," Palisoul said. "We don't have to schedule around the football or soccer teams."

The Eagles also get the benefit of playing their home games at, well, home. Though Bentley is close enough to be considered a home game, it didn't have the same feeling of playing on campus. And as other sports know, it's hard enough to get fans in the stands when the games are in Chestnut Hill.

"It's amazing, because we're actually able to have friends go to the game and just feel like we're supported more than just by the parents," sophomore forward Crystal Frates said.

The field itself is also a big advantage for the Eagles, who had been playing on the "dry" turf at Bentley. The turf installed on the Newton Campus field is "wet," meaning the team is able to dampen it before playing. The wetter field greatly increases the speed of the game and the consistency of the ball's bounces.

"The turf we played at Bentley, was dry and it moves a lot slower," Frates said. "With this turf, it's wet and we can move the ball a lot faster and are able to use the skills that we're best at."

With BC's move into the ACC, one of the best field hockey conferences in the nation, it was time for the Eagles to get a nicer facility to keep up with the competition.

And with the Eagles now ranked No. 16 in the nation, they finally have a field that matches up with their talent level.

"It's a great facility ... it's just heaven," Frates said.