Comments on: Ken Hitchcock on Parity; Me on old arenas

By: DougS

DougS — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:08:00 +0000

One of the most interesting developments in Major League Baseball during my lifetime, I think, has been how MLB went from building symmetrical and generic ballparks in the ’70s and ’80s to reviving quirky and idiosyncratic stadiums in the next two decades.

I wonder if the NHL will eventually decide that same is boring, also.

By: Geoff DeSouza

Geoff DeSouza — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:43:00 +0000

It hasn’t entirely gone away – TSN told a great story yesterday about how the Wings “conveniently” painted the visitor’s dressing room a couple days before a playoff game, so the opposing team (Avs? I’m 99% sure it would’ve been the Avs) had to dress in a combination of paint fumes.

I too miss the “custom dimensions” of old stadiums. Buffalo’s rink was even tinier than Boston’s; I swear, I played on a pond bigger than that as a kid. Boston’s was especially unique because not only was the ice a non-standard shape, but the curvature of the corners was abnormal; each of the four boards was a slightly different shape, and reacted differently.

Someone once said that the NHL made a mistake when the post-new-Boston-Garden arenas weren’t built to international rink sizes, to accommodate the upsized players since the previous rink-construction boom in the 60s and 70s. I think they should’ve allowed teams to settle on whatever size they wanted between the current standard and the full international standard; it would have made things interesting, to say the least.

By: DougS

DougS — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:43:00 +0000

IIRC, the stands at Chicago Stadium used to rise straight up, too, so the crowd was very close in. The last game I went to there, before I moved back to LA, I sat in back of one of the goals and I felt like I could drop a loogy right down on top of the net (not that I would ever do that).

I also recall that, back in Red Auerbach’s day, visiting NBA teams used to complain a lot of about Boston Gahden, stuff like how the AC in the visitor’s locker room mysteriously stopped working. But a lot of that was supposedly manufactured by the Celtics. Don’t know if you could get away with stuff like that today in any major sport.

By: Doughty99

Doughty99 — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:28:00 +0000

imo, Home Ice only means something in Game 7 (unless you’re the Canucks).

By: Garrett79

Garrett79 — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:55:00 +0000

“Which is why I prefer playing in the other team’s mall.”

Wait, are the Whalers back?