Kingston Frontenacs
Rink: Slush Puppie Place
Capacity: 5,614
Built: 2008
League: OHL
City: Kingston, Ontario
Home Of: Kingston Frontenacs
Games Attended: 8
First Visit: March 24, 2008 vs Peterborough
Most Recent Game: February 2, 2019 vs Guelph
Unique Arena: #11
OHL Arena: #7
The now-named Slush Puppie Place sits in the heart of downtown Kingston, so as you can expect you’re going to have to pay for parking. While there, are many parking lots around and they are mostly small, so if you like to show up very close to game time it can be a bit tedious finding a spot. The exterior of the arena definitely lends itself to the city’s nickname of the Limestone City. The building’s footprint is actually quite small for an arena of its size, so there isn’t much extra room. The ticket booths are just glass windows on the building’s exterior, and as soon as you go through the doors you’re spilled onto the ice level concourse which goes about two thirds of the way around the rink.
There is another concourse at the top of the seating bowl, but you cannot access the bench side of the rink on this concourse without a club seat ticket. The grey limestone aesthetic from the exterior continues on the inside of the rink. All the seats are a grey, silver, platinum whatever spin you want to give it. Most of the walls around the rink have the same colour, and for a team whose identity is black and yellow (or gold) there is very little in the way of team colours outside of the team store.
Over the years the Frontenacs have built a reputation of not winning. The franchise has played in the OHL/OHA since 1973 and has yet to win a league title or even make it to the championship final, though things have been slightly better in the last ten or so years. What used to be years of missing the playoffs or early first round exits are now replaced with first or second round exits. That sounds like a dig, but it does feel like the Fronts are turning a corner. All of that is to point out the crowd support in Kingston can lack a lot of the time, and who can blame the people of Kingston for not coming out over the years? When the team has made deeper playoff runs like their conference final run in 2018, the fans come out and they are loud. They are starved for a winner in Kingston and one hopes the Fronts one day can shock the world and win the big one.
I’ve always been a big fan of going to games in Kingston but unfortunately on my most recent trip in 2019 Kingston was lacking in several areas. Rude security at the front door that wouldn’t let in my regulation-sized camera, there were very little to nearly no ushers, no 50/50 draws, subpar use of their video board and a post-game security person who thought my girlfriend took too long in the bathroom before our three-hour drive home. Also, how do you guys not play a single Hip song all night?
Now that was several years ago, and as of this writing Kingston is my longest OHL arena drought, so I would like to get back soon. I hope those issues from my 2019 visit have been put to rest. I would love to see Kingston get a Memorial Cup tournament one day, as the city is beautiful and I think the rink would be a good host.
Bonus point to this building for hosting the final Tragically Hip concert ever.
A funny story. My first game here was on the first weekend the rink opened in February 2008, and it was the second ever Fronts game at the rink. During pre-game warmups, a pane of glass at each end of the ice shattered. The new arena apparently had no replacements so for the first period pieces of plywood were put up in each end to replace the broken glass. Thankfully there was a smaller crowd there that day, and ushers allowed people behind the wood to move. The rumour was they went down the street to the Fronts old home the Memorial Centre to get replacements which were installed in time for the second period. It ended up being the Fronts’ first win in their new home.
