Boston’s Matthews Arena — which is older than Fenway Park, both Boston Gardens, the Bruins and Celtics and the NBA and NHL, too — will be “closing its doors this week” after more than a century of “hosting the biggest names not just in sports but also politics, music and culture,” according to Jimmy Golen of the AP. Now owned by Northeastern Univ., the 115-year-old barn “will say goodbye” when the Huskies men’s hockey team plays Beanpot rival Boston Univ. on Saturday night. It will be “replaced by a multipurpose arena and recreation center on the same site.” The building that opened as Boston Arena on April 16, 1910, served as the original home of the Bruins and Celtics — “giving birth to the team’s iconic parquet floor.” Along the way it hosted both President Roosevelts, along with William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover and future presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. Aviators Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart “were feted there.” Concerts there featured Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Chubby Checker, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bob Dylan and many more. Even as the “paint peeled and the bricks began to crumble,” the arena “remained a no less historic destination than its more famous Boston brethren on Lansdowne and Causeway Streets” (AP, 12/11).
Matthews Arena will be “replaced by a multipurpose arena and recreation center on the same site.” Northeastern University
END OF AN ERA: SI’s Dan Gartland wrote an era of Boston sports history “will come to a close” Saturday with the closing of Matthews Arena. It is the oldest hockey and basketball arena in the NCAA and the oldest multipurpose athletic building in the world. When it opened, the Titanic “was still under construction,” the U.S. had only 46 states and Fenway Park “had yet to be built.” The arena was Boston’s first indoor ice rink and “quickly became the city’s hockey epicenter.” On occasion, Baseball HOFer Babe Ruth — then a member of the Red Sox — would “play hockey with an amateur club” that used the arena. The Bruins called Boston Arena home from their establishment in 1924 until 1928. In 1946, the newly established Celtics played their first home game there and “continued to split time” between the arena and the Boston Garden until 1955. A third major professional franchise — the World Hockey Association’s New England Whalers (now the NHL’s Hurricanes) — began its life at the arena in 1972. The rink “played a major role in Boston becoming a hotbed for American hockey” (SI, 12/11).
FINAL GOODBYE: In Boston, Andrew Mahoney noted “some of the biggest names in local hockey lore” came to the arena on Monday, at the invitation of Northeastern AD Jim Madigan, “for a last visit to the building.” Hockey HOFer and former Boston College men’s hockey coach Jerry York, the winningest coach in college hockey, “was on hand,” as was fellow HOFer Jack Parker, his longtime counterpart at Boston Univ. Others included Hockey HOFers Mike Millbury and Bill Cleary, a two-time Olympic medalist with the U.S. men’s hockey team; former hockey player Ben Smith, who coached the U.S. women’s hockey team to Olympic gold in 1998; and former ECAC Hockey Commissioner Joe Bertagna. Mahoney wrote most guests “were content to walk around the building one last time” and “reminisce with old friends and longtime rivals.” But a “few took the opportunity for a final skate.” Deconstruction of the arena is “set to begin later this month” (BOSTON GLOBE, 12/11).