AUS Fan
Registered User
Semi random thought, but UNB has always had a "legacy item" from hosting nationals (centre ice scoreboard, video boards, private boxes, etc). Regardless if they bid on mens or womens in the future, the next thing should be visiting dressing rooms.. I have played hockey in 95% of the rinks in New Brunswick and a decent amount in NS and PEI , and the rooms at the AUC are as bad as every facility I've been to that isn't in a place like Minto, Shippigan,etc. I can't imagine they are much fun with 20 large hockey players... even with the door open to join 2 rooms and the showers were the type where if I dropped my face cloth, i would not want to pick it up... It's the perfect rink for what it is, but those rooms needed revamped 30 years ago.
UNB has a nice room for the home team. That's all that matters.
When I was in "The Joe" in '97 when we played the US guys they had the Red Wings room and we were down the hall. Not a terrible room by any measure but very basic stalls. This was the same room that visiting NHL teams had.
Edit: Adding to the "legacy items" is the ability to attract top recruits when you're hosting.