UConn is getting moderately shafted in the Barclays deal. A big name home opponent being removed from Hartford, going to the second-rate NYC hockey facility (Barclays is TERRIBLE, I repeat, TERRIBLE for hockey), and get paired up with an awful doubleheader game. Army-Bentley will be lucky to have 1,000 poeple in the building. I would be willing to bet the UConn-ND game doesn't outsell last year's Harvard-Yale game at MSG. I would be willing to bet you my diploma that it won't touch BU-Cornell, and probably not Penn State-Michigan.
It's a nice opportunity for the program to gain some exposure to the NYC UConn alumni base, but few recruits come from that area, so there's little to gain in that department. It also runs the risk of a UConn "home" game being heavily weighted in the stands to ND. If UConn hockey continues on the trajectory they're on now, this would be a great game to have in three or four years when the program has a little more buzz and, theoretically, success around it. Seems a bit early in the progression for this.
And of course, if the B1G offered an all-sports admission, UConn would leave Hockey East in a heartbeat, as they should. But you don't just leave the best conference in the country in a particular sport for the heck of it, the standing offer has to be there for all sports. A B1G associate membership invite in hockey only is a pipe dream, not happening. All sports is a much more likely scenario.