Arenas/Stadiums/Venues of Your Past

I loved the Aud in Buffalo, where it always felt like you were on top of the ice. I covered basketball at the Empire State Games there back in the mid-90s, which I think was the last event ever there.

 

The pre-1971 Buffalo Memorial Auditorium (before the roof was raised for the balcony in Sabres' Year II) was an oustanding venue. It lost some of its intimacy when the orange seats were added.

The lobby was like an old train station. I can still remember how the seats in the original Aud were color-coded for pricing: Golds closest to the ice/court, then the reds, then the blues, and the the grays. The golds and reds were cushioned.

The gray seats were long gone by the time the above photo was taken, and the golds, reds and blues had been pushed up accordingly.

And it sounded like an atomic bomb had gone off when you stomped an empty beer or soda cup in the concrete tunnel ramps that led to the upper levels.

 

The Palestra on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania was a focal point of college basketball in the 50s and the 60s.

When I was at Penn (61-65) Penn, Temple, LaSalle, St. Joe's and Villanova all played their home games at the Palestra. Doubleheaders at least 3 times a week - - it was GREAT.

In my four years at Penn, I missed exactly two of those doubleheaders. Good times indeed...

 

I'm very glad I got to see a Black Hawks game at Chicago Stadium. Unique.

For anyone pining for the old Boston Garden, look up a good 1970s movie called "The Friends of Eddie Coyle." Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle go to a Bruins game and they obviously shot on site. There's game action, too.

Oddest place I ever saw a pro game was the old Teaneck Armory, where the New Jersey Nets first played (They may have been the NJ Americans at that point).

 

There's a great site of a couple of guys who snuck into the Aud before it got demolished and took some pictures:

http://brnation.d2sector.net/ue/buffalomemorialauditorium.htm

 

Those pictures are sweet.

The old hockey arenas all seem to have the fans right on top of the ice, with the steep angles and incredible sightlines. It's sad to know those types of places are gone forever.

I can't find a good photo of it, and I'm sure no one on here has ever heard of it, but in the basketball category I'll nominate Wharton Fieldhouse in Moline, Ill., former home of the CBA Quad City Thunder. Great second-deck overhang, and cozy to the point where a rival coach likened it to playing a basketball game in a phone booth.

 

Still can picture the first Hawks game I went to at Chicago Stadium like it was yesterday. Skinny-ass concourses and ramps where everyone is bumping into each other on their way to their seats, people smoking everywhere, beers held by patrons double fisted--most drank, some spilled on the concrete floor. Escape through to the rink with the pristine, white glass-like ice surface contrasting against the red and brown brick wall along the upper deck.

And then the National Anthem. Oh my. Nothing like that experience anywhere in sports. And I don't think it feels quite the same at the United Center--not quite as cozy and compact and some of the power and sound seeps away.

Hawks fall behind to the Sabres 4-0 or 4-1 in the first period that night. Was a giveaway night where they gave a glossy picture to the first 10,000 fans of some player--I can't remember who. At the end of the first period, 10,000 glossy pictures littered the ice surface.

 

Both of these, plus:



Richfield Coliseum - Attended numerous Cavs and Crunch games here and also sat through numerous hour long traffic jams while trying to get to the only exit from the parking lot.



Cleveland Stadium - Cavernous, tons of poles, some of the worst restrooms in the western world.



Market Square Arena - I saw a lot of mediocre late 80s NBA and Michael Jackson here.



Hoosier Dome - I saw my first NFL game here (Colts/Oilers) as well as the '91 Final Four.

 

Hard to believe that was a major league park all the way up to the 90s. I remember watching Jays games on TV and wondering "what the hell?" Home runs landing on half-eaten football fields, bleachers going the wrong direction, no upper decks, it was just ....weird.

And then they replaced it with a sterile astroturfed retractable dome right before the classic ballpark movement began. Strike 2. Hopefully their third park will be the charm.

 

Yeah, then that retard Jerry Reinsdorf joined in, thinking the retro movement was a fad that wasn't going to catch on ...

 

Goodness, love the nostalgia in this thread. I could spend hours walking around old ballparks and rinks, just soaking in the memories. These should have all been put on the National Register of Historic Places and preserved.