{"id":859579,"date":"2026-09-25T00:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T00:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/859579\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T00:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T00:34:10","slug":"connecticut-sun-fans-sad-upset-as-sun-play-last-game-at-mohegan-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/859579\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecticut Sun fans sad, upset, as Sun play last game at Mohegan Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

UNCASVILLE \u2013 Richard and Kathleen Geltzer of Wethersfield have been Connecticut Sun<\/a> fans and season ticket holders since the team\u2019s inception in 2003.<\/p>\n

Thursday night the Geltzers were at Mohegan Sun Arena<\/a> for the last Connecticut Sun game, before the team moves to Houston for next season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to have tears in my eyes the whole night,\u201d Kathleen said earlier in the week. \u201cI just loved, loved the fact that we had a women\u2019s team here. A professional team here in Connecticut. I\u2019m really heartbroken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Richard: \u201cIt\u2019s been a passion of my wife\u2019s for so long \u2013 she was even part of the senior dance team for a while \u2013 it\u2019s been our passion for 23 years, 24 whatever it is. It\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConnecticutDevoted fan Mary Olivieri shows her Sun tattoo before the team’s final game in Connecticut, on Thursday night vs. Toronto at Mohegan Sun. (AP Photo\/Jessica Hill)<\/p>\n

Thursday night, before the opening tip vs. the Toronto Tempo, the season ticket holders lined up in their special line outside the arena like they always do. It snaked past the Krispy Kreme<\/a> donut shop and beyond. There were younger and older fans and all ages in between. There was a range of emotions from sad to angry to nostalgic to grateful.<\/p>\n

Many were clad in the Sun\u2019s signature orange jerseys. Marcia Velencia came from the Boston area with her sons and her brother-in-law. She wore a shirt that read: \u201cThank you Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were reading the angry tweets to pass the time on the trip down here,\u201d Velencia said. \u201cIt\u2019s very sad. Connecticut has been such a good market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve loved it. We\u2019ve had a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a two-hour drive each way for Velencia, who has been a season-ticket holder the last three years. She only missed two games this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players are so wonderful and I\u2019ll miss all the fans too,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve always loved basketball and a few years ago, my kids asked me who are the \u2018GOATs\u2019 of women\u2019s basketball and I said, \u2018Let\u2019s go see a game.\u2019 I have boys and they fell in love with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players are kind and engaging. We could go to the Celtics but that\u2019s a totally different atmosphere. We became friends with the fans around us; we\u2019ve built a community and you feel like you\u2019re part of a family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wendy Heilweil of Norwich was at the front of the line with a group of friends. She has been a season ticket holder since the franchise moved to Connecticut in 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very sad,\u201d Heilweil said. \u201cWe made so many friends here. It\u2019s just sad it\u2019s going to be the last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FanFan Anne Rajotte, left, of West Hartford, embraces Sun employee Delaney Roth on Thursday before the Sun\u2019s final game in Connecticut before heading to Houston for the 2027 season. (AP Photo\/Jessica Hill)<\/p>\n

One of those friends, Eddie Tuthill of Ledyard, was similarly sad, also \u201cupset. And mad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are my Sun family members.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what are the fans going to do next summer, if your summers are built around going to WNBA games?<\/p>\n

\u201cI keep asking everybody, \u2018What are we going to do next summer?\u2019\u201d said Sun fan Kathy Criscillo of Newington.<\/p>\n

Tuthill thought he might go to the beach or some concerts. Some, like Darryl Branch of New London, said they might go to New York to Liberty games.<\/p>\n

Heilweil doesn\u2019t like the Liberty so she\u2019s not going to New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n

Velencia said she wasn\u2019t even sure if she would buy Houston Comets gear.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you want to root for these players who have been so good to you,\u201d Velencia said. \u201cAaliyah Edwards, we love her, and Saniya (Rivers), they\u2019re so good with the fans. We might root for a different team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might take me a little while to process my feelings and decide what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kathleen Geltzer remembered when she first called the Sun and asked about season tickets back in the spring of 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked us where we wanted to sit,\u201d she said. \u201cWe said, \u2018In the corner behind the team about five rows up,\u2019 and that\u2019s exactly where they put us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been there ever since,\u201d Richard said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been to 90 percent of the games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen it all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UNCASVILLE \u2013 Richard and Kathleen Geltzer of Wethersfield have been Connecticut Sun fans and season ticket holders since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[20242,4384,15861,15862,983,63868,99,434],"class_list":["post-859579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-connecticut-news","tag-connecticut-sun","tag-ct-news","tag-hartford-courant","tag-local-news","tag-mohegan-sun","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}