A more cynical fellow might suggest summoning Handel's Hallelujah Chorus to commemorate the news that — finally — there's a football series between UConn and Boston College forthcoming.

No, really. After all the years of bickering, blathering and bloviating, the two programs who need each other in the same amusing way Republicans and Democrats do — desperately but aren't willing to admit it — begin a series next year.

Former Boston Globe reporter Mark Blaudschun, who authors his own blog now, and later Brett McMurphy of ESPN, reported the news Monday. UConn plays at Alumni Stadium next November before the Eagles come to East Hartford in 2017. Blaudschun wrote the series would "take a few years off and then resume the schedule on a regular basis."

Great news. For all of us. Or at least the folks who love the game but realize that college football in the northeast has a perception problem. And the best way to energize the region is to — sorry for the cliché — raise awareness about it, pitting two schools 80 miles apart that can't stand each other.

Think about it. A game people other than the diehards will discuss. Throw a few snowballs back and forth. That good, healthy sporting hate.

Or would we rather BC keep playing Howard and UConn keep playing Villanova?

This is going to be delicious. Everything college football should be. A true rival game for two schools currently without one. I mean, UConn plays this preposterous "Civil Conflict" contrivance with a school nine and a half states away. BC plays Syracuse in its "rival" game at the end of the year. It barely drew 30,000 last November in Chestnut Hill.

And that, really, is the point of this game. Butts in the seats. A buzz. Because this just in: Neither team can fill its stadium anymore. Boston College's last home sellout against anyone other than Notre Dame was Matt Ryan's last home game: Nov. 24, 2007 against Miami. BC's average home attendance in 2007 was a respectable 41,989 in a 44,500-seat stadium. So much for the theory of the fan base's ennui over the unfamiliar ACC. When BC was good, the people showed up. Now? Not so much. After that scintillating 3-0 loss to Wake Forest over the weekend, the average home attendance this season dropped to a little more than 31,000.

And UConn? Please. The best fiction in America is ranked thusly: 1. Stephen King; 2. Dr. Seuss; 3. The guy who comes up with UConn's football attendance numbers, normally inflated like a passenger's side air bag.

So what better way to redistribute the juices than by playing this game? The UConn people will work themselves into a tizzy all week, firmly entrenched in their belief that BC has blackballed their school from the ACC. (As if BC has that much influence over all the good ol' boys down south). BC people will harrumph all week that the game really means nothing to such an established program, more evidence that "delusion" must be one of the majors on the Heights.

Both schools need this game. If for no other reason than to showcase college football in the northeast. So the kids in recruiting pools across the country see passion and venom in full stadiums and perhaps think, "gee, why not go there?"

UConn and BC may bristle at the idea that they share anything other than geographic proximity. But it's that proximity that makes recruiting at both places so difficult. New England just isn't that fertile. So the message much resonate beyond the borders.

If I'm UConn and BC, I start politicking ESPN's College GameDay to show up next November. A New England-palooza. Legal Sea Foods' clam chowder for the whole gang. Bring back the pilgrims, Paul Revere, current ESPN employee Jim Calhoun and Flutie.

Finally, a college football experience that's an event, not some game.

Can't wait.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro. Twitter: @BCgenius