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The Boston Celtics will hold their preseason training camp at Patrick Gym from Tuesday, October 5-10, Celtic officials announced.

We are very proud to welcome the Boston Celtics to the University of Vermont and the Burlington area, said senior associate athletic director Jeff Schulman. We are also very proud of our men's and women's basketball programs, and it is great to have them associated with one of the most storied franchises in the history of the NBA.

"I appreciate the University of Vermont opening their doors to us," said new Celtics head coach Glenn 'Doc' Rivers. "I believe getting away will afford us the opportunity to get to know each other and allow us to become closer as a team."

It will mark the first Celtics training camp for Rivers, who took over the helm of the team following last season. Boston, which reached the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs in 2003-04, returns several top players led by All-Star guard Paul Pierce. Workouts will be closed to the public but the team will hold a Green-White scrimmage on Oct. 9 at Patrick. Ticket information will be available soon.

Winners of an NBA-record 16 world titles, it will be the Celtics third appearance at Patrick Gym, as they previously played a pair of exhibition games in the 1960s. Boston held an intra-squad game in the fall of 1967 and prior to the following season, they played the Philadelphia 76ers at Patrick Gym. They are the fourth major league organization to train at UVM and the first basketball team. In recent years the NHL's New York Rangers and the Hartford Whalers have held training camp at UVM's Gutterson Fieldhouse. Prior to the strike-delayed 1972 major league baseball season, the Montreal Expos held workouts at the Gardner-Collins Cage.

Boston's first exhibition game is Oct. 12, when they take on Chicago at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, N.H. They open the 2004-05 regular season Nov. 3, when they host Philadelphia at the FleetCenter.

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