#7

TD BankNorth Garden – Boston Bruins

Convenience/Access – Right on top of the main train station and some subway lines. Directly off of the highway. About as good as it gets.

Location/Scene – The location is fine, although a tiny notch below the gold standard of NY/WAS. There is plenty of activity around the Garden although it is in the city of Boston, which detracts points. No one ever said we were unbiased.

Outside Appearance – A huge square box with a slightly cool curved roof atop it. Its relatively unique looking, which is good.

Inner Aesthetics – If you cant tell by now, we love color-matching seats. Especially when you have distinctive colors like black and yellow, and when those colors win out over an equally historic NBA co-tenant’s, extra points. But the view of this rink from your seat is terrific. Beyond the yellow, the setup is good, the boxes are unobtrusive, the LED boards aren’t out-of-hand, and the ceiling is low.

Concourse – Compared to some other cookie-cutter rinks, the concourse here feels small, and somewhat sparse. Totally uninteresting one way or the other.

Sightlines – Good. We sat in the last row of the place in the corner, and we loved the view. The rink feels small and steep.

Concessions – This is another rink that fell very early on the trip, before we would make it a point to scour the entire rink for its food offerings. We did enjoy the decent prices and plentiful dunkin donuts stands.

Fans/Atmosphere – Again- our game was during the very lean years for the Bruins. The crowd was small and provided zero intimidation for the plentiful Isles fans there. Now it has obviously turned around 180 degrees, however we will note that even during the game we were at, we noted that with a good team, the TDBNG had the potential to be a sick scene. Boston’s a good sports city, what can we say.

History/Banners – Fan-fucking-tastic. Awesomely displayed, tasteful, and as unique as we’ve seen (the circular B logo, ful-name ones for the bruins, the very small, checkerboard ones for the Celts. There were statues of past greats around the arena. Tons of points here.

Cool Stuff – Of all the things it has going for it, this category isn’t one of them.

Bars – Or this one.

Store – A very good store with good prices. One of the first places we saw to carry non-superstar name and number shirts. Random note: many years ago during a visit here, JP bought a small box of ground up parquet floor from the old Garden. I think I lost it.

Value – No good at all on the tickets. For the state of the team at the time, we should not have spent 50 bucks on the worst seats in the house for a Bruins Isles game. The concessions and store were slightly better than we expected.

Overall – This rink tops the list of ones that we want to return to. Mostly because we have a feeling it may rank even higher when we do. This place dhas a ton of the things we all like in a rink, and hardly any of what we don’t. Even situated in this b.s. city, we all give TDBNG high marks, with the footnote that they may even be too low.

#11

Madison Square Garden - New York Rangers


Convenience/Access - Couldn't be better. Located on top of Pennsylvania
Station, North America's busiest train station, MSG is easily accessible
from just about anywhere in the tri-state area. There are over priced
parking garages in the vicinity but there is absolutely no need to drive to
attend a Rangers game, no matter where one is coming from.

Location/Scene - We're talking about the heart of New York City here.
Bars, restaurants and nearly everything else abound.

Outside Appearance - Unique for an arena in that it is round. There are
only windows on the four elevator columns. An arena amongst the urban jungle
of Midtown Manhattan looks pretty cool.

Inner Aesthetics - MSG sports a very unique interior look. The ceiling in
particular, has an interesting spoked wheel look to it, reminding you that
you're in a round building. The seats are very ugly. Prior to a 1991
renovation the Garden's seats were referred to by their color. The reds were
the two digit sections, the oranges were the 100's, the yellows were the
200's, the greens were the 300's, and the blues were the 400's. Since the
renovations the two digit sections are purple, while the rest of the
building's seats are teal. The seats are neither the colors of any team that
calls the arena home nor the most intimidating hues.

Concourse - The hallways of the Garden are small. Some are more narrow
than others. If they pass fire code it must be by the slimmest of margins.
There are very few areas to eat your food if you don't want to eat in your
cramped seats.

Sightlines - The self-proclaimed "World's Most Famous Arena" has the worst
sightlines we've seen. Many older buildings offer a steep set of seats that
often gives the feel of being on top of the play. The Garden couldn't be
more different. The slope of the seats is very gradual. By the time you get
to the 400's you are quite a ways away from the playing surface. There are
two inner walkways, which are great in that you can keep your eyes on the
game while walking to your seat, but you're also blocking the view of others
while doing so. If you're sitting in the front row of the 100's or 300's
you'll have fans and vendors walking in front of you all night. Also the
angles of the seats in relation to the rink are awful. 95% of the building
can't see a thing in the corner nearest to them. The seats are also small
and offer little leg room.

Bathrooms - MSG's bathrooms are small and many are weirdly arranged. When
approaching some Garden lavatories one notices there are two ways into the
space, neither of which are labeled. Many assume that one side is for
entering and the other for exiting. But if you enter the side that appears
to be the exit way you'll find stalls and urinals that are on a different
side from the rest of the bathroom that none of the people going through the
"enter" side are spilling into. Many people are miffed to see people
seemingly cut the line to enter what looks like the exit. These people are
merely going to the lightly used side of the bathroom. It is a very poor set
up. Also, the bathrooms begin the game clean and well prepared but fall into
disarray quickly.

Concessions - The Garden's food is great if you like soggy knishes or half
cooked pretzels. The food options at MSG are scarce and not so healthy. All
of the common fare is offered: pizza, hot dogs, burgers, chicken fingers,
pretzels, peanuts, etc. You'd think maybe a New York arena would sell good
pizza given that the area flaunts its ability to produce superior pizza.
Nope. They sell La Famiglia, a terrible chain pizza.

Fans/Atmosphere - This is hit or miss. Some nights you'd swear the Garden
is the most rocking building in the league and others it's a library. The
game presentation has suffered over the past few years. Probably the best
example of this is a "fan" known as Dancing Grandma. Dancing Grandma is an
elderly woman who dances to a particular song that is often played during
the third period. She is put up on Gardenvision (fancy name for the
scoreboard video monitors) during this. She is so obviously a planted fake
fan it is sickening. The atmosphere has also suffered over the last decade
or so as a result of so many seats being owned by corporations. Many of the
premium seats visible on TV are often unoccupied. Too many people using
those seats show up late and leave early. Many games are listed as sellouts
because all 18,200 seats are sold. That doesn't mean they're all in use.

History/Banners - The Rangers don't have the most decorated history if you
only measure history in winning. They only have four Stanley Cups to show
for their 81 years in the NHL. That said, walking through MSG doesn't inform
one in the least about the eight decades of New York Rangers hockey. This
is a shame. The retired number banners are tasteful, besides the arch on
some of the players' names not being true to the arch as it is on Ranger
jerseys.

Cool Stuff - There isn't any.

Bars - There are a few bars but they don't match up with the bars in many
of the newer buildings. They're hardly the only ones to do it but MSG
servers measure out their liquor, ensuring you get an exact, miniscule shot
for your $9. The beer selection isn't great but a few choices are offered.

Store - Possibly the worst in the league. The stores are small and very
cramped and don't offer much. The player t-shirt selection is awful.
Cosby's, a private store located outside the main entrance to the building
is well stocked, but very expensive.

Value - When the Blueshirts failed to qualify for the playoffs for the
sixth year in a row in 2002-03, MSG chairman Jim Dolan promised a 10% drop
in ticket prices if they didn't end that streak the next year. They didn't
so prices were dropped coming out of the lockout in 2005-06. The team has
made the playoffs every year since though and things have been looking up.
The prices have gone up considerably since.

Overall - JP and CC have been to many, many games here so we have a
soft spot for it. I (cc) especially do being that I'm a Ranger fan. MSG
definitely has charm and plenty of character. It manages to feel cozy
despite the slope of the seats. In a tough-to-describe way, it definitely
feels different in every way from any other building we've been to in the
NHL. That said, it needs to and probably will be updated or replaced in the
near future.

#9

Scottrade Center - St. Louis Blues

#10

Bank Atlantic Center – Florida Panthers


Convenience/Access – Get in your car and drive to Sunrise for the treat of watching the Cats. Apparently only the Heat are worthy of Miami proper.


Location/Scene – There is clearly no room on South Beach, but somewhere a bit more connected to the nightlife and social scene down here would undoubtedly help. There is no scene that we saw in Sunrise, besides at the tiki/margarita bar that we ate at a few hundred yards from the parking lot. There are probably some good reasons to have the rink out here, more central to other areas than all the way south, but these are our rankings and we like rinks in cities.

Outside Appearance – Chock up another newish, glass and white concrete structure to the NHL landscape. Nice, but nothing otherworldly. Some funky Miami art deco architecture would have been cool.


Inner Aesthetics – More blandness. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t memorable or good. The seats are green, which is nothing if not different. The scoreboard and outer LED boards are on the hard to read side.

Concourse - Best feature of the arena, by far. One of the higher scores in any given category of any rink, actually. The inside of this place is clean, interesting, unique, and screams Miami. Among the highlights: CARPETING, curtains, salsa dancers, lots of neon. Our game was actually the highest-attended game in Panthers history, and the concourses were not suffocating.

Sightlines – Good. Our club level seats were excellent and while there are steeper setups, this place certainly affords pretty good views. To our discredit, we did not check out the upper level sets in any detail.

Concessions – Like all good newer rinks, you can get anything you want here. We don’t recall anything amazing us or jumping out as especially interesting, but the lines weren’t long and there were plenty of stands.

Fans/Atmosphere – We got a sweet game- Montreal and all of their snowbird fans in town on the day before New Years’ Eve. Made for a crowd vibe but we really cant give any credit here, because we all know that the usual scene is way worse, and even with the charged crowd, the overall atmosphere was bland anyway. The continued “tradition” of the “Panthers….Goal” fan response is cool.

History/Banners – The few actual accomplishment-related banners were fine. There were the obligatory, cheap and unnecessary banners of all 30 nhl teams, but there wasn’t any #1 fan or such nonsense. A push, we say.

Cool Stuff – For a team with very little history, the panthers acknowledge and display their tradition well. Lots of homages to the 96 team, rat displays, etc. The large banners proclaiming the various skill-sets of current panthers (our favorite: Mike Van Ryn – KNOWLEDGE, is above) were a riot.

Bars – At least 2 big, non-generic bars on the main level- one of which was a cool vodka/ice bar type thing. We partook.


Store – Great selection, albeit light on jerseys and player shirts that we noticed. High prices.

Value – Very good, at least for the club seats. This team needs cheap tickets.

Overall – A really clean and attractive arena with a very bland seating bowl and no atmosphere in or around the rink to speak of. Another rink whose ranking is influenced heavily by one “outlier” ranking (EP’s).