Best Rinks in college hockey

[Gainzo]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

Free parking can be found on Suffolk and Cabot Streets. There is also a very large free parking lot at Notinis which is directly across the street from the Beerworks/Brewery Exchange.

[gordwiser]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

An oldie but a goody topic...

Would love to positive rep your post, Puck Swami, but it seems I need to spread some around first! Good post...

I really would like to head to the East Coast for a week and take in some weekday and weekend games to check out the different arenas and fan bases. Hard to compare when most of us rarely stray from our geographic areas. Personally, I can only speak to the WCHA.

New Ralph... I love it because it's my favorite team, but for true college atmosphere it doesn't rank too high. In actuality, each game night is a show and for a college arena it's as close to an NHL production as you're going to get...going to the Ralph is an event. I do really like all the different photographs and history spread throughout the arena. If you have the time to explore the arena, there are a lot of cool touches that can get lost in the extravagance.

The Mooch... great sightlines and murals... but really not very intimate or intimidating. Seems rather sterile lately. Kohl center has great fans. The old DECC and the NHC are dumps but I still like watching games there.

Long story short... the Old Ralph is far and away the best place I have ever seen college hockey. Loadest place I have ever been. Fans on top of the players. Over 40% of the seats dedicated to the students... wow. I'd trade in any other arena to go back to that place for games.

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

I haven't been to Conte in ages.

OK, that explains a lot then. It's tough to really explain it... the annual improvements over the past few summers have really made a huge difference. Especially the paint job (sounds weird but most agree, guess you would have to see it yourself) and the ridonkulous HD widescreen scoreboards.

[streaker]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

There are many criteria for picking a rink. I've been to many of them, and here are mine:

Best Architecture: Yale, Dartmouth. Hard to best Eero Saarinen and Pier Liuigi Nervi, two mid-century giants of architecture.
Best Features: North Dakota arena remains palatial.
Best Sightlines: BU and Northeastern. Steep and intimate.
Best Bleachers: UVM, Michigan and St. Lawrence have that old school feel.
Best Nooks and Crannies: Alfond at Maine. The balcony there is special.
Best Concourse: Maricucci - you can see the game from almost antywhere, even when you aren't in your seat.
Best Ice Surface: Harvard. A cold rink for nothing but hockey.
Best Tradition: Northeastern's Matthews. Most historic, hand's down. Can't beat 1909 and all the teams and players skating there.
Best Crowd: Michigan and Cornell. Can't beat those atmospheres.
Best Food and Drink: Haven't found anything that beats Denver's chef-carved roast beef, and full bar service. Pricey but good.
Best Seating: North Dakota. Hard to beat leather seats.
Best Lobby Shrine: Hobey Baker display at Princeton. Genuflect as you pass Hobey's stuff.
Best Murals: Probably Maricucci
Best Public Transit Access: Northeastern, BU and Denver are all very close to light rail stations
Best Sound System: North Dakota. You can hear everything.
Best Lighting: North Dakota. Very bright, no shadows on ice.
Best Echoes: Michigan. Yost is an old fieldhouse, and echoes are everywhere.
Best Student Section: Cornell is most creative, while Wisconsin's is most choreographed.
Most Intimidating; Probably Michigan, North Dakota and Cornell.
Most Loud: Probably Wisconsin.

++1 Class post, Swami.

[LTsatch]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

Ingalls is architecturally beautiful, but the shape makes standing room a pain in the ***. (Or, more literally, a pain in the back, because that's how you'll feel after spending the whole game with one foot higher than the other.)

I agree with your assessment of the Ingalls standing room angles, the old time Ingalls sharpies actually come to the game with little platforms that they stand on to level their footing. I always do standing room and usually will switch ends to wherever Yale is attacking to even out my pain. The State of CT hockey championships when played at Ingalls can be a sight to behold as well, usually six deep in standing room. If anyone ever goes there be sure to check out the Schley Room, while used for hospitality during games it contains photos of Yale teams going back to the 1880's

[jmh]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

I don't think it's really fair to hold the parking situation at Conte (which I guess may be the same at Agganis, and was probably the same at Penn and UIC when they had teams) against the rink. That's just a fact of schools in dense cities being a different animal from schools in less dense cities and smaller towns. If you're going to make that a black mark on BC's record then the fact that REA is in the middle of a frozen tundra 700 miles from the nearest city has to count against that building, doesn't it? These are issues about the rinks' surroundings, and to me they're extraneous to what we're talking about, which is the rinks themselves. Others may have different opinions on this point, of course.

[Puck Swami]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

Yea, you haven't walked around Matthews much if you think sightlines there are good. Any seat on the sides of the balconies will basically keep you from seeing anything happening along the boards below you unless you're in the front row and even then you have to lean over and look down.

Still a great place to watch a game, though!

The view from the first row of balcony there is the best view in all of college hockey.

[Roben]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

Who has the best rink?

best overall? the Ralph Englestad Arena

[slurpees]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

The view from the first row of balcony there is the best view in all of college hockey.

I'd take the balcony at Alfond. I don't particularly like a bird's eye view of the game, and plus as was mentioned before, if you're along the side boards, you have to lean over the rail to see what's going on when the puck comes in front of you on your side. That in addition to some of the other seats having some of the worst views in college hockey = Matthews being a bit overrated in my book.

[Slasher7]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

I'd have to say Matthews is my favorite because of the history. Like the old Garden, if you have a great seat, you have one of the best seats to see a game anywhere. Also like the Garden, if you have a bad seat, you have a horrible seat.

Agganis doesn't have a college feel to it to me and Mullins is a ghost town. Conte is what it is, a basketball arena that a hockey team plays in. I will say the scoreboards at Conte are better than several NHL arenas Ive been to.

[Slasher7]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

[QUOTE=unhpuckfan2001;4987296]

Have you come up to a game this year? They (finally) repalced the lighting over the summer, along with some other much needed upgrades (new, seamless glass, dashers, etc). The lighting is much better, both from a fan's perspective and from skating during open skate, the shadows are gone. Not to mention the new NHL corners, and the goal lines moved so they're only 11' from the boards as opposed to 18' (that's what I was told, I didn't measure it). I am told the next step is FINALLY putting in a real scoreboard - when the building was built, funding ran out for the scoreboard that was originally intended. The hookups for a center-ice video board are there, just waiting for something to hang on them.

As for cutting corners . . . yep. They could have installed air conditioning for another $35,000 at the time of construction, and decided not to. They've lost a (conservative) estimated $250,000 is revenue from not being able to use the building for much in the summer. That's a good chunk of a scoreboard, right there.

Somebody mentioned "Whit is Agganis on a budget". I'd say that Agannis is actually the Whit with money, since it was built after the Whit. I read online that the Agannis was designed to incorportate a lot of things from the Whit.

Now, if only the Whit would incorporate the beer they sell at Agganis . . .

I havent been to the Whitt since last March, so if they have made improvements, that's great. To me, the Whitt has always been a dark canyon.

[unhpuckfan2001]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

Rinks I hate:

Whittemore Center (UNH) * Cut too many corners, high school quality scoreboard, lighting sucks

Have you come up to a game this year? They (finally) repalced the lighting over the summer, along with some other much needed upgrades (new, seamless glass, dashers, etc). The lighting is much better, both from a fan's perspective and from skating during open skate, the shadows are gone. Not to mention the new NHL corners, and the goal lines moved so they're only 11' from the boards as opposed to 18' (that's what I was told, I didn't measure it). I am told the next step is FINALLY putting in a real scoreboard - when the building was built, funding ran out for the scoreboard that was originally intended. The hookups for a center-ice video board are there, just waiting for something to hang on them.

As for cutting corners . . . yep. They could have installed air conditioning for another $35,000 at the time of construction, and decided not to. They've lost a (conservative) estimated $250,000 is revenue from not being able to use the building for much in the summer. That's a good chunk of a scoreboard, right there.

Somebody mentioned "Whit is Agganis on a budget". I'd say that Agannis is actually the Whit with money, since it was built after the Whit. I read online that the Agannis was designed to incorportate a lot of things from the Whit.

Now, if only the Whit would incorporate the beer they sell at Agganis . . .

[sterlippo1]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

Make sure you get to Matthews when you're out here.




Gotta agree with slurpees about the Matthews sightlines. They're horrendous unless you're in the balcony. It's still my favorite place to watch a game, but to say there is "not a bad seat in the house" is crazy talk. There are probably more bad seats than good seats. Of course, I'm usually in the fantastic new press box, so I can't complain.

the only thing missing at Matthews are human beings..... unless it's BC or BU the place is a lot less than half full..........

[Puck Swami]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

the only thing missing at Matthews are human beings..... unless it's BC or BU the place is a lot less than half full..........

That may is true, but that place sounds better with 1,500 fans in it than a lot of 5,000+ crowds in other places.

[sterlippo1]

Re: Best Rinks in college hockey

Conte stinks just like Mullins as there are railings eveywhere. How is getting to Lowell a pain in the butt? Take either 128 or 495 to the Lowell Connector and you will be at Tsongas in 5 minutes. Plenty of free parking and a rink that doesn't have a bad seat. Not to mention the Beer Works and Brewery a 1 minute walk away.

Getting to Conte on a Friday Night is freakin' horrible and I live in Burlington, MA.

i like Conte AND Mullins but agree with the rest of your post . no problem at all with access to Tsongas and not to far from the arena are some great restaurants and bars. Lowell has it's issues but they've done a great job in a lot of the downtown