UConn women's parade: Connecticut governor Ned Lamont announces new date for championship rally

NCAA Womens Basketball: Final Four National Championship - Source: Imagn

Coach Geno Auriemma and the UConn Huskies won the women's basketball national championship on Sunday with an 82-59 win over the South Carolina Gamecocks. As is tradition, the Huskies will have a championship parade in their home city of Hartford, Connecticut.

The championship parade was scheduled for the morning of Saturday. However, the forecast predicts that there will be rain, and as a result, Connecticut governor Ned Lamont announced on Wednesday that the parade has been moved to Sunday.

The parade will begin at the State Capitol building at the intersection of Trinity Street and Elm Street. The Huskies will then move through the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch before progressing through the city.

The rally for the event will begin at around 1:30 p.m. ET when the parade reaches the XL Center on Trumbull Street. At the rally, players, coaches, and other guests are expected to be invited to give speeches.

As part of the press release for the parade being rescheduled, Lamont said that the parade and rally are being funded by private donations through sponsorship opportunities. State and city funding is not being used to fund the event.

UConn Huskies win their first National Championship since 2016

This parade has been a long-awaited one for the Huskies fans. The last time the team won the national championship was in 2016. Although for most programs, a nine-year gap between championships would not be a big deal, UConn is not like other programs.

The Huskies are the winningest program in the history of college basketball, having won 12 championships. Their championship in 2016 was their fourth in a row, the first time that any women's college basketball team had won that many in a row.

As a result, Huskies fans had become accustomed to winning. In the gap between championships, the Huskies only made one appearance in the national championship game. They reached the final in 2022 and played the Gamecocks. However, the result was different.

The Huskies will celebrate the win with their fans in the parade on Sunday. Geno Auriemma and all the players, including Paige Bueckers, will attend the parade.

About the author

Alexander O'Reilly is a journalist at Sportskeeda from Kingston, Ontario with over seven years in the field at companies including SenShot, RVBlogger, Monarch Media, WordAgents, GSeC LLC, and IGC.

His favorite college team is Duke, and his favorite sporting memory was Duke winning March Madness in 2010. JJ Redick was Alex's favorite college player when he was young but more recently, Caleb Williams gets the nod. As the Chicago Bears are Alex's favorite NFL team, this was a perfect match.

Alex's proudest moment came when he was interviewed by a radio station in Ottawa on his opinion on recent moves by the Ottawa Senators, which gave him a confidence boost and the knowledge that he could succeed as a writer.

Aside from sports, Alex likes to spend his time playing games. He is also very passionate about running and strives to improve at the half and full marathon distances.

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Edited by Krutik Jain