Visited NHL Arenas
Northlands Coliseum - Edmonton, AB
The Northlands Coliseum was built in 1974 for the then WHA’s Edmonton Oilers, who moved into the NHL in 1979, and consequently the building was the site of some of the greatest hockey ever played, with the Gretzky-led Oilers dynasty of the 1980s winning five Stanley Cups in seven years. The building was also home to the reborn Edmonton Oil Kings of the WHL, which produced a couple championship teams of their own in the 2010’s. In 2016 Rogers Place opened downtown for the Oilers and Oil Kings to move into. Despite this, the Coliseum remained open to host events, but by the end of 2017 the building was sold to the city who closed its doors permanently. Since then the arena has been awaiting demolition, which has been complicated by toxic materials like asbestos being abundant in the building. It’s been a slow process moving all of that out, but it appears the building will finally be coming down at some point in 2026. I never got to a game at Northlands, and by the time I visited Edmonton in the fall of 2023 it was locked up tight. Even if we somehow had found an open door, going inside would’ve been a bad idea without a respirator of some kind, no thanks. But I did get to see the building from the outside and I spent a few minutes looking at it thinking about all the great moments that happened there. It definitely had an aura to it.
Brendan Byrne Arena - East Rutherford, NJ
Brendan Byrne Arena was built in 1981 in the Meadowlands area of New Jersey, just outside New York City. The New Jersey Devils arrived from Colorado in 1982 and called the arena home until the Prudential Center opened in 2007. The NBA’s Nets stayed for a few more seasons before moving on, and the arena continued to host non-sporting events until 2015 when it was shut down. Many arenas that shut down but are not torn down usually sit vacant gathering dust and costing cities hundreds of thousands of dollars (even millions) per year just to stand there doing nothing. The Meadowlands, however has made use of the arena as the floor has been turned into a sound stage with sets built to film tv shows and movies. We stopped by the arena in January 2025 on our way to a Devils game at the Prudential Center that afternoon. With the building still active but closed to the public we figured there might be an open door somewhere. We tried a couple that were locked but also decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to catch a trespassing charge in the state of New Jersey anyway and headed for Newark.
Pacific Coliseum - Vancouver, BC
Recently I had heard that the Vancouver Canucks have now actually played at Rogers Arena in downtown Vancouver longer than they did their original home, the Pacific Coliseum, in the east end of the city. The Canucks played here from their inception in 1970 until 1995, when the new rink opened downtown. Despite the Canucks moving on, the building has stayed open for smaller events and eventually welcomed the WHL’s Vancouver Giants in 2001. The Giants stayed until 2016, and the building hosted the 2007 Memorial Cup, which still holds the record for highest total tournament attendance of 121,561. The Giants eventually left in 2016 for Langley, and the rink has not hosted any hockey since before the covid-19 pandemic, but it still has ice from time to time hosting Disney on Ice as well as concerts, monster truck shows and any event that doesn’t want to pay the higher prices of Rogers Arena. In February 2025 I was in town and decided to email the folks at the Coliseum to see if I could get inside to see the former NHL & WHL arena, and shockingly they said sure. I got to spend some 30-45 minutes inside checking the place out. A few months after I was there it was announced the PWHL granted an expansion franchise to Vancouver and they would play at the Coliseum. I look forward to getting to a game there sometime soon.
