Dom Amore: When it's time to say goodbye, Sun finally saying hello again to Hartford

MONTVILLE, Conn. - Morgan Tuck was still weighing her college choices on Nov. 16, 2010, when she took her seat behind the UConn bench in Hartford at what is now known as PeoplesBank Arena.

"It's kind of what sold me on going to UConn," Tuck said. "I came up for a visit, and it was UConn playing Baylor and it was sold out, 16,000 people. They had us behind the bench, I was sitting behind Sue Bird. Swin Cash, and I just thought this was the best moment of my life. That's when I felt like, ‘I have to be a part of this.' I just thought it was the coolest thing ever to be there."

Tuck played on four national championship teams at UConn, with many of the biggest games played in downtown Hartford. That particular night, the Huskies, ranked No. 1, edged No. 2 Baylor, 65-64, as a young center, Brittney Griner, scoring 19 points, was just getting her college career started with the Bears.

Hartford is the capital of the state that considers itself the Basketball Capital of the World, largely because of the UConn women's success and the state's embracing of the women's game long before it was fashionable elsewhere. Tuck, now the GM of the Connecticut Sun, and Griner, the franchise's most accomplished player, bring the WNBA, the best women's basketball in the world, to Hartford Saturday to play the LA Sparks at 6 p.m., to an atmosphere that could be more awkward than electric.

"I think it gives us more exposure this last season," said Olivia Nelson-Ododa, UConn alum who is in her third season with the Sun. "It gives people a chance to see us who can't always get to Mohegan (Sun). They always showed up for UConn, so I don't have a doubt we're going to have a good crowd there."

The game was not sold out as of Friday, as the Sun were practicing at the Tribal Government and Rec Center. The franchise's second game in Hartford, July 2, will bring Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd to town with the Dallas Wings, so don't expect tickets to be easy to come by there. How big a crowd will be drawn to a game that doesn't have such a marquee attraction, with the Sun (1-8) at the bottom of The W and the Sparks a middling 3-3, it will be interesting to see, how well the passion for UConn women's basketball transfers to women's basketball, generally, at the end of May.

It will be interesting, too, because the Sun, as Nelson-Ododa alluded, are playing their last season in Connecticut. There's an old line in baseball, applied to a player known for being surly with reporters begins to be more accessible when hanging on at the end of his career. "He's learned to say hello when it's time to say goodbye," it is said.

So the Sun, who played one game in the capital in July of 2003, are saying hello to Hartford, where an investment group led by Marc Lasry and the state were ready to invest $325 million to buy the team and another $100 million for a practice facility before the NBA and WNBA refused to even entertain the possibility and maneuvered the team to Houston for a lesser deal.

The forces arrayed against keeping a WNBA team in Connecticut, or anywhere in New England, proved to be too strong. The Mohegan Tribe bought the failing franchise from Orlando and moved it into their 8,000-seat arena within the casino. It has been full, or near full, more often than not, as smart business people made it the first franchise in the league to turn a profit beginning in 2010, and resourceful basketball people provided competitive teams on the court year after year. The Connecticut Sun helped save the league, but it has always been just business, nothing personal. The Tribe's idea was to bring people into the casino to spend more money, so even if it meant comping a lot of game tickets, it was worth their while. There was no reason for them to play games in Hartford, no matter how many tickets they might sell.

Now, during this "Sunset Season," the franchise will twice play in the capital of the basketball capital.

"It allows us to make sure we are getting around the state as much as we can," Tuck said, "so the most amount of people who want to see our team play, this may be their one chance and they'll have two opportunities to do it."

Interested in selling, they farmed a few games to Boston the last couple of years, where they drew 20,000 to TD Garden and got Boston investors to also bid $325 million for the franchise. The Tribe, which paid $10 million in 2003, was ready to cash out, and if the WNBA insisted they take a little less, $25 million less, and sell to Houston, they took the deal on the table. There goes the Sun, hello Houston Comets. Business, not personal.

With its growth in recent years, the WNBA outgrew the small arena inside the casino, and probably have outgrown Hartford, a top 30 market, despite a 15,000 seat arena in Hartford that could be just the right size.

"I'm hoping they can enjoy the game, come watch us, continue to follow us," Nelson-Ododa said. "Connecticut's a basketball state in general, people love it, embrace it so much. It's a city, so I think putting any type of sport there would pan out well."

A half-sold building and apathetic crowd Saturday will trigger the "I told you so" crowd. See? Never would've worked. … A big, electric crowd of people who spend all day at the FanFest on Pratt Street and make their way over, and it will be cause to wonder what might have been. But this is not an audition; whatever statement is made, the powers that be in this case turned a deaf ear to Connecticut fans long ago. If Hartford is ever to get a team, it would have to be an expansion franchise sometime after 2032.

"I think any city can host (a team)," Tuck said. "Hartford is a smaller market than some of the bigger cities, but when you have people who are passionate about a sport, passionate about a team, I think people can make it successful. I'm always an optimist. Will it happen? Who knows, but I think people can make it work if they want it to."

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This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 8:59 PM.