Re: Best Rinks in college hockey
I'm not necesarily looking for luxury but I agree Agannis is nice. Parking can be a problem. Conte has great scoreboards and is good as long as you're in the red seats. The bench seats suck. As for the first row being away from the ice, agreed but who wants to be in the first row anyway. Matthews is by far the best for sight lines and old time feel. Not a bad seat in the house. Concessions could use an upgrade though. I'm not sure why people have a problem with Mullins. Very comfortable seats and good sight lines. Also, I always get lots of laughs while I'm threre. It really is so entertaining listening to the most ignorant fans in hockey. Wow, are they dumb! Lawler is gross! Many local high schools play in better facilities. Concessions, rest rooms, seating, not enough of any. Put the scoreboard back out on the little league field. Whatever they spend on upgrades is wasted. A new building is badly needed at Merrimack.
What Matthews Arena have you been to? The sightlines there are, outside of the front row of the balcony, are HORRIBLE. If you're not sitting in one of the front two rows of the balcony, you can't see almost half of the ice. Not to mention downstairs if you're shoved back in one of the corners, good luck trying to understand what's going on. There are numerous seats in the building that are directly behind a cement post, as in the cement post is one foot in front of the seat, and they didn't even change this when they renovated. Speaking of the renovations, with the new press box, there are now two sections that abut either side of press box that have very obstructed views of the other end of the ice. I've been to many games there and sat in a few different spots, but I can't say I've ever had a seat where I've been terribly impressed or happy with my sightline, and the time I sat in the balcony in the fourth row or so, and my view was horrible. Not to mention they sold my friend a ticket for one of the seats that had a post blocking 90% of his view of the ice.
I understand the "old barn" feel of Matthews, which is really nice, but when you walk into that place, unless you already knew what happened there, there isn't much mention of it save a few pictures in the concourse area, not to mention that through all of the notable things that occurred there, little to none of it has anything to do with Northeastern or things they accomplished. I've never seen any New England Whalers banners hanging, nothing commemorating the inaugural Beanpot, etc. So while it certainly has its fair share of history, I've never really felt walking into that place like I was walking into a truly historic venue. Nowhere near along the lines of walking into a place like Fenway, the old Yankee Stadium, MSG, even a place like Yost, or Michigan Stadium.
Of all of the places I've been, my favorites still are Yost and Alfond, with Walter Brown still as my favorite though not in use anymore by the men's team. Agganis certainly is the "nicest" facility, though Tsongas' renovations brought it up the list quite a bit. Nowhere else in Hockey East really has impressed me, the Whit is basically Agganis on a tight budget, Conte is fairly average, though the new screens are really nice, and everywhere else is either crap or just eh.
