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Guelph Storm

Rink: Sleeman Centre
Capacity: 5,000
Built: 2000
League: OHL
City: Guelph, Ontario
Home Of: Guelph Storm
Games Attended: 307
First Game: December 14, 2007 vs Windsor
Most Recent Game: March 23, 2025 vs Kitchener

Seeing as the Sleeman Centre is the home rink for my favourite team and I’ve been to more games here than any other arena in the world I tend to be a bit biased about it.
The Sleeman Centre was built in 2000 in what was an old Eaton store in the Old Quebec Street Mall in downtown. While there are a couple parking garages on site (around the back from where this photo is taken) it will cost you $5 which these days is almost expected. It’s strange that the actual front facade of the arena that you see here is really the Defacto rear of the building because 90% of people enter the rink through the parking garages and the mall on the other side.

The Sleeman Centre in Guelph is the definition of a clone rink in today’s CHL. About 5,000ish seats in one continuous bowl with a concourse on top that is open to the action, so you don’t have to miss any of the game in you’re in the concession lineups. Also added is a restaurant/bar area on the club seat side and a ring of suites around the top. It’s nearly identical to the rinks in Sarnia, the Soo and Oshawa but with subtle differences. For whatever reason I have felt the Sleeman Centre is a tad more intimate than those rinks. The roof feels slightly lower (even if it isn’t) and the fans feel closer. Again, I might be biased towards the rink seeing as I call it home.

Adding to the tight feel of the Sleeman Centre is a concourse that is usually pretty packed with the now normal large crowds the arena sees. Getting around at intermission can be a bit of a slog especially going through the restaurant area which apparently is getting some renovations done over the summer of 2025. A lot of Guelph hockey history is on display in the concourse as every section sign as the list of all the players in Storm history who wore that number i.e. section 110 here is a list of every player that wore number 10. There is a hat trick display honouring the supposed berth of the hat trick (in hockey) that was started by the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters who also won the 1952 Memorial Cup. The display case now has hats from recent Storm tricks as well as plaques around it showing every instance of a Storm hat trick in the teams near 35 year history.

Of course, in addition to the many Guelph Storm banners in the rafters there are also banners for the aforementioned 1952 Memorial Cup team as well as the 1986 Guelph Platers who also won the Memorial Cup before the Storm came to town.

All the views of the ice in Guelph are pretty solid and the seats are your standard molded plastic. There is also a small section of extra club seating up in the suite level behind one of the nets (which is where this photo is shot from) that offer much wider and thickly padded seats that offer a great top-down view of the action.

I would say the biggest flaw of the Sleeman Centre is the video scoreboard. It was installed in 2010 and is now the oldest in the league. It’s a tad too small and can get quite pixely at times. In addition to it freezing up from time to time. In 2010 when it was installed having any video board in the league was more than enough, but time has moved fast in these last 15 years and if you don’t have HD, you really seem behind the times. At the opposite end from these club seats is an open space where the flags hang and sponsorship has been plastered on the walls but in the last few years the Storm have used the space to welcome in local bands and artists to perform live music pre game and at intermissions which is a nice touch. It’s been nicknamed ‘The Loft’ after an area of the same name high up in the old Guelph Memorial Gardens.

For the first decade or so that the Sleeman Centre was open it was quite common to see crowds of 2,500-3,000 in between games that would sell out.
However over the years it seems that Friday night Storm games have become an institution in the city and now even when the team is doing poorly on the ice, near sellout crowds are the norm at the Sleeman Centre. Just simply walking up and buying a group of 4 tickets with the view you want before the game isn’t quite as common as it used to be. While the building is packed most nights, I do have to say the atmosphere in Guelph could be better. Sure, it gets loud during goals or in the waning minutes of a close game but sometimes you can hear a pin drop, hopefully one day the people of Guelph can turn up the atmosphere a bit.