BOSTON — Before the first women’s Beanpot hockey tournament, in 1979, Harvard Coach Joe Bertagna purchased a two-toned brown beanpot for $6 at Howard’s Flying Dragon Antiques in Essex, Mass.

For 35 years, until a more regal-looking silver trophy replaced it in 2014, Bertagna’s beanpot was awarded to the tournament’s champion and treated like the Stanley Cup — in stature and as a celebratory prop.

“It’s probably a little worse for the wear after we were done with it,” said Alison Quandt, a goaltender on Boston College’s 2006 team that won the Eagles’ first Beanpot title. The men’s Beanpot, featuring Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern and Harvard, began in 1952 and is quite possibly the most prestigious in-season tournament in college hockey. Bertagna and the other teams’ coaches formulated the idea for a women’s Beanpot at a bar in Harvard Square in the late 1970s, and since 1979, the women’s Beanpot tournament has been played with the tradition of the men’s tournament, if not the pomp.

The women’s competition has grown to include some of the game’s premier players, but they are still fighting to gain recognition from a larger audience.