Share your memories of the defunct NHL arenas

[Big Phil]

It doesn't necessarily have to be ones from the Original 6, but I suspect most of them would be. Share your memories of visiting them, what made them so unique, or what you are nostalgic about with them. Or even just of how you saw them on TV.

Maple Leaf Gardens - The only old arena I visited, but I loved it. Low ceiling, literally the loudest place I have ever been in and even as a kid I thought the seats were quite tight and close together.

The Spectrum - I don't know why, but there always seemed as if there was a fog in the Spectrum when you watched it on TV. Not that I am complaining, because I liked that. It almost seemed as if they just shot some fireworks in the air and the smoke was clearing up for the whole game.

Buffalo Memorial Auditorium - Those insane incline of seats especially behind the net. How someone didn't get killed, or how a drunk fan didn't fall is beyond me. I even think the Rogers Centre (Blue Jays stadium) in Toronto has a pretty steep upper deck but nothing compared to the Aud.

Chicago Stadium - The goal horn, need I say more?

Boston Garden - Yellow seats, which matched the Bruins' colours.

Montreal Forum - Automatically made you a little more reverent when watching a game knowing all of the things that happened there.

Random thing with the old arenas. The Forum, MLG, The Spectrum, Joe Louis Arena even, they all had a special way for the TV viewer to see it. You would always see the top of the fans' heads when a goal was scored, or a fight happened. In Joe Louis' case you could see clear heads and faces at times, which made it unique. There was always hands that got in the way of the camera when a goal was scored at MLG. I know TV execs might have hated this, but to me it almost made you feel like you were there.


Edit: I was at the Igloo a couple of years before it closed. While it was the oldest stadium in the NHL when it closed I never got the "nostalgic" feel about it. Sure Mario and Jagr played there and Crosby and Malkin were playing there at the time too but its ceiling was incredibly high, which didn't make it as loud, and the bathroom facilities I thought were incredibly outdated and not plentiful.

Edit: I've always felt part of what the NHL is missing is these old arenas and atmosphere that can't be matched with the cookie cutter versions of today. Baseball at least still has Fenway, Wrigley and Dodger Stadium that still have that "old time" feel to it and have been around forever, but hockey doesn't anymore.

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[VanIslander]

The Pacific Coliseum had plenty of boards for us to bang and stomp and make noise!

Now there's too much concrete and metal to do it. Calisthenics is a quiet activity at games, requiring lung, throat and instrument use.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I got to visit MLG right before it closed. Coming off a visit to the HHOF and knowing that the building was about to go away, it was like visiting a museum. Things that jump out in my memory:

- The foyer before the game was an incredible hockey atmosphere. Everyone just talking hockey while they waited for the turnstiles to open. I think this had a lot to do with the internet still being in its formative stages... being around passionate fans wasn't something you could do 24/7. You could tell that the hardcore fans showed up ready to take advantage of being around kindred souls, and it was just a roar of chatter about how this or that team was doing, who was looking good or bad this season, etc.

- The banners up in the rafters had style. In an era when all the other arenas used simple rectangles with a basic "logo/season/achievement" format, it was striking to look up and see something sleek, with a sense of design. It wouldn't stand out now, but it did then.

- There was an old 1930s-style hand cart zamboni, painted blue, over the player's entrance to the ice. One of those things that gave the place a "museum" quality.

- The seats were horrible. Easily the smallest I've ever seen in any arena, the size of coach seats on a discount airline. You could actually feel the springs poking you in the butt when you sat in them, and it was impossible not to touch the person next to you. The fact that they had character and history, did not redeem them from being awful.

- The railings in the end zones. Like something you'd see in a college basketball arena, as a "quirk" of the local barn. Weird to see that in an NHL building, and a true relic of a bygone era.

- Overall, it had that concrete-and-paint feel and smell that you get in a very old building. It's a particular sensory experience that you don't get once you introduce a lot of plastics and other elements of the 1960s+. Sometimes I still find an old school gym that has it, but MLG was of course on an entirely different scale than a school gym.

- Leafs destroyed the Pens in that game, 7-1. I remember going out to the souvenir stand during the third period, and overheard someone saying to a concession guy that it was too bad it wasn't a better game. I don't know why, but that comment during a blowout win for the home team struck me as so odd and stuck in my memory ever since.

 

[overg]

Aside from the goal horn, old Chicago Stadium had two things which worked in conjunction to make it one of the best "home field" advantages. First, the crowd was just right there on top of the ice. It just felt like Chicago fans could leap out of their seats and into any fray on the ice at a moment's notice.

Add that to the amazing pipe organ. That organ revving up that super-intimate crowd was just a massive jolt of go-power for the Hawks.

 

[Chief Nine]

Boston Garden had ramps leading down to North Station where the arena used to sit on top of. I remember the smells, cigar and cigarette smoke, the crappy popcorn and your feet sticking to spilled soda on the rampways. The place was alive when things were happening on the ice though, what a vibe

 

[Tweed]

Maple Leaf Gardens - The only old arena I visited, but I loved it. Low ceiling, literally the loudest place I have ever been in and even as a kid I thought the seats were quite tight and close together.

Remember the "trough" in the washrooms?

 

[blood gin]

MLG also wasn't a regulation shaped rink though it is rarely remembered as one (much like the Aud, Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium) but MLG had somewhat irregular corners

Chicago Stadium was actually supposedly the best preserved/maintained of the classic rinks when it closed. And they also crammed the most people into an absolutely tiny area. I remember Roenick in an interview mentioning that it would get so loud and people would just bang on things in the upper decks that dust from the roof areas would often fall down onto the ice

Boston Garden I can remember was a warm rink. You were just right on top of your neighbor in the seats. Seats seemed ancient as well. I think many of them were still the original ones from the 20's

 

[blood gin]

Talk about being on top of things. This is what a basketball game could look like in the Boston Garden

 

[Big Phil]

Remember the "trough" in the washrooms?

Oh yeah, I guess you could say I don't miss that. I mean come on, we aren't in prison! But it was just another one of those "old-time" feels that the Gardens had.

 

[rfournier103]

I remember going to the Boston Garden to see the Bruins with my dad and one of my brothers back in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

We sat right behind the glass at the end the Bruins shot at twice. My dad knew someone at work who had season tickets and when dad could afford it (which was almost never), he’d buy this guy's three seats right next to the goal judge.

I remember hot dogs, soda, popcorn, the organ playing, and dad buying anything and everything for us that we asked politely for.

I remember going to see the Bruins play the Buffalo Sabres; the Toronto Maple Leafs; the New Jersey Devils; and the Hartford Whalers - and whipping them all.

Four of the best nights of my life.

Thanks, pop.

 

[The Panther]

The Pacific Coliseum had plenty of boards for us to bang and stomp and make noise!

"NHL defunct", but Pacific Coliseum is still going strong, although I just realized now that the Vancouver Giants no longer play there! (I haven't lived in Van since 2011.) It was a weird experience to see a WHL game there, as I kept thinking about the Canucks' (and Oilers') games I'd watched there, on TV, during my childhood and youth. It did have a great vibe, felt intimate.

Of course, I have memories of Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. Will always be the hockey shrine, for me.

The rink I have the strongest attachment to is probably the Saddledome in Calgary, as I remember seeing it constructed and when it opened, and have seen the most games/events there. The fact that it will likely be closed soon saddens me.

 

[blood gin]

"NHL defunct", but Pacific Coliseum is still going strong, although I just realized now that the Vancouver Giants no longer play there! (I haven't lived in Van since 2011.) It was a weird experience to see a WHL game there, as I kept thinking about the Canucks' (and Oilers') games I'd watched there, on TV, during my childhood and youth. It did have a great vibe, felt intimate.

Of course, I have memories of Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. Will always be the hockey shrine, for me.

The rink I have the strongest attachment to is probably the Saddledome in Calgary, as I remember seeing it constructed and when it opened, and have seen the most games/events there. The fact that it will likely be closed soon saddens me.

One thing I remember about the Pacific Coliseum is it came across great on TV, especially in the 90's with the crisp bright white Canucks uniforms on the brilliant white ice. Well lit too. Just looked good on TV compared to say the Nassau Colisuem or the Capital Center which basically looked like a hockey game played in a back alley somewhere

 

[blood gin]

On my own old home arena. Brendan Byrne.

The capacity was listed as 19,040. It was never 19,040. They just did that to antagonize the Rangers. I don't even know what the precise capacity even is. I'm not sure anybody does.

It was not a dump. Actually a tidy arena but one that was way too big for the Devils. In the middle of nowhere. And a very boring generic feel and design. It was nothing more than a larger Copps Coliseum. It could get pretty loud though when full. But the massive capacity made even crowds of 17,000 look like we had tons of empty seats. And there were no obstructions. Also both decks emptied out into a main mezzanine level concourse which became a total nightmare.

To its credit for being a tri state area rink that got a lot of use, the ice was never what you would call bad.

Imagine this space during a cup finals game. Nightmare city

The acoustics were always hailed as being really great for concerts, and a lot of legendary bands and performers from around the world would comment on how great they sound at Byrne

We also were a rare blue dashers rink. Towards the end it must've been just us and Montreal

 

[Howie Hodge]

Remember the "trough" in the washrooms?

Similarly, they had troughs in The Aud.

Personally, it was convenient to be able to get in the men's room, pee, and get the hell out, quickly. Let the shy boys use the stalls....

 

[JMCx4]

I attended my first (of many more) pro hockey game at the St. Louis Arena on Oakland Avenue in 1967. Formerly host to livestock shows, it was destined to be dubbed "The Old Barn" by St. Louis Blues fans who grew to be lifelong supporters of the expansion team and of the sport. The very steep stairs up to the equally steep vertigo-inducing upper tier end zone seats are the most vivid memories of the Arena for me, followed by the leaking roof & the loud crowds chanting & singing in unison. I'm sure other Blues fans on these forums can add to that list of happy times.

 

[DJ Man]

I remember Chicago Stadium, maybe 1961-66. The adult patrons must have been 90% smokers, as huge clouds wreathed the overhead lamps by the time the third period rolled around.

In addition to that four-sided thing hanging over center ice, the rink maintained an auxiliary scoreboard on the balcony facade at one end of the rink. This board gave the out-of-town scores as well as the local game. However it was entirely manual and very no-frills, just slides for extreme abbreviations of the team names and a number for their score, with no notation of the time or even the period. As simple as this:

CHI 2 DET 2 RAN 0
TOR 1 CAN 4 BOS 0

Remember, only six teams, so three games max. Someone seated in that section swapped out the numbers as the night wore on. you had to guess how far along were the other games, but you took what you could get.

But wait, why were two teams identified by nickname while the others were by city? Nobody ever explained it. The answer didn't occur to me until decades later. This Spartan scoreboard must have dated back to before the so-called Original Six era. Back when there were possibly three other games with eight teams involved. As Montreal and New York had two teams apiece, the city name was insufficient. For all I knew, there were unused transparencies for MAR and AMS (i.e., Maroons and Americans) back there. They probably made a slide for CHI and added the redundant local game once they had a blank game slot to deal with!

 

[GMR]

One thing I remember about the Pacific Coliseum is it came across great on TV, especially in the 90's with the crisp bright white Canucks uniforms on the brilliant white ice. Well lit too. Just looked good on TV compared to say the Nassau Colisuem or the Capital Center which basically looked like a hockey game played in a back alley somewhere

Maybe I'm blind, but I always thought the Pacific Coliseum was the darkest arena I'd ever seen on TV. It looked like somebody dimmed the lights. Was fun to watch for sure, but it's interesting that I had the exact opposite TV experience than you did watching games in that arena. The only arena I can think of recently that approach it would be Rexall Place.

I feel like in 20 years, we'll be saying that San Jose's arena was unique and not like other buildings in the league. Smaller than the average arena and has a great atmosphere.

 

[The Panther]

According to what I saw on TV, I always thought the old Fabulous Forum / Great Western Forum in Los Angeles had the worst lighting, but I'm saying that based only on television experience. It looked like they were filming a horror movie, as it was so dark.

 

[Howie Hodge]

Now I always liked the more intricate corridors in the old buildings, be it Maple Leaf Gardens, or The Aud.

The Aud had it's Balcony (The Oranges) added in 1971. The result was some interesting network of corridors, which often contained little bars. One such was The Beer Garden under The Blues. It was back when you got to know many of the Regulars at the games.

The Beer Garden.

Then there was The Aud Club - where a jacket was required.
(This is after the area was stripped of furniture and bar, etc...)

Aud Club Stairs

The Balcony, The Oranges - oh so steep.....

The sound dampeners that hung from the ceiling.
The corridor behind the Oranges - waaay up there...

And of course, a little concession stand off of a little corridor reminds us that prices have gone way up since 1996...

 

[ted2019]

What I remember about the Spectrum.
[*] It was a dump
[*] It was LOUD
[*] The steps were very steep
[*] There was never enough working bathrooms
[*] Opposing teams fans were NEVER welcomed

 

[blood gin]

What I remember about the Spectrum.
[*] It was a dump
[*] It was LOUD
[*] The steps were very steep
[*] There was never enough working bathrooms
[*] Opposing teams fans were NEVER welcomed

One thing I noticed about the spectrum is that it had a tiny little 3rd deck (like what would usually be a mezzanine) above the upper deck.

 

[DannyGallivan]

The old Winnipeg Arena. I remember in 1980 when they retrofitted three thousand more seats to make it NHL-worthy. It was spring time and Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Ken Dryden and about 20 other NHL and former WHA players were hosting a benefit game for one of Bobby's old teammates - Billy Hiendle - who paralyzed himself in a failed suicide bid. I didn't have a ticket to get in, but I was outside of the arena in the construction site. I noticed a bunch of older teens scaling the fence and climbing up a rickety ladder to get into an open wall in the construction site... it led straight into the stands (second level, I believe)! I saw this and followed suit. I found an empty seat and watched the game for free. Gotta love old-time security. And yes, I would have paid to get in if I had the money, but I was a kid not old enough for a part time job at the time.

 

[Normand Lacombe]

One thing I noticed about the spectrum is that it had a tiny little 3rd deck (like what would usually be a mezzanine) above the upper deck.

That 3rd deck was an add on. The Spectrum was originally built to hold about 14,700 people for hockey and had two levels, the lower bowl and the upper deck. Once the Flyers established themselves, ticket demand skyrocketed and that 3rd deck was constructed in 1972 to alleviate some of that demand, adding about 3,000 more seats.

 

[Normand Lacombe]

What I remember about the Spectrum.
[*] It was a dump
[*] It was LOUD
[*] The steps were very steep
[*] There was never enough working bathrooms
[*] Opposing teams fans were NEVER welcomed

Opposing teams hated playing in the Spectrum. Many opposition players would come down with the Philly Flu when their team came to Philadelphia. I'll still take the dumpy Spectrum today over the sterile Wells Fargo Center.

 

[JianYang]

Aside from the goal horn, old Chicago Stadium had two things which worked in conjunction to make it one of the best "home field" advantages. First, the crowd was just right there on top of the ice. It just felt like Chicago fans could leap out of their seats and into any fray on the ice at a moment's notice.

Add that to the amazing pipe organ. That organ revving up that super-intimate crowd was just a massive jolt of go-power for the Hawks.

All the O6 areas had some feel of intimidation, and the Chicago stadium was right there at the top with Boston ga
The other memory that strikes me about the Chicago stadium was the stairs the players had to climb just before they touched the ice. It was so odd to see.

Boston garden always looked dingy, and dirty to me, and based on what people have said about it, that was actually the case. Very intimidating feel even on TV. There's some legends about the huge rats living in that building.

I also remember this one guy at the old aud in Buffalo who would do a dance on the railing. They called him the earl of bud. That building also felt intimidating, and it was certainly small like the garden.

I remeber the weird looking roof on the igloo in Pittsburgh.

I remember the lighting at Pacific coliseum in Vancouver. The ice just looked different there. It was very milky looking and I loved it.

The old arena in Denver had that huge flood in the 90s during a playoff game the wings. It looked like they were playing in a pool.