Trois-Rivières Lions
Rink: Colisee Videotron
Capacity: 4,390
Built: 2021
League: ECHL
City: Trois-Rivieres, Quebec
Home Of: Trois-Rivieres Lions
Games Attended: 1
Only Game: November 2, 2025 vs Greensboro
Unique Arena: #114
ECHL Arena: #7
The ECHL currently as of the fall of 2025 has just one Canadian based franchise. Of all the places it could be located Trois-Rivieres, Quebec seems like a very random spot for it. The city of Trois Rivieres has been without a QMJHL franchise since 1992 and as the years went by it became less and less likely any hockey of that calibre would return as the original Colisee in the city got older and older. With that in mind the city set out to build a new arena despite no major tenant being announced as construction began. The arena was built on vacant land within spitting distance of Autoroute 55 just beyond the north banks of the St. Lawrence river. While a QMJHL franchise would seem to be the most logical choice for the city to go after it was met with resistance as the nearby Shawinigan Cataractes consider Trois Rivieres their territory and didn’t want another Q team moving in on their turf. So the city pivoted and in January 2021 it was announced the city would be granted an ECHL franchise to begin play that fall when the building was complete. When opened there was very little in the immediate area around the building except some parking lots, but in the last few years some condo buildings and businesses are beginning to pop up around the rink.
As you go through the main entrance there is a fantastic display case off to your right on the history of hockey in Trois Rivieres. From there you enter a corridor. To the right are the entrances to the main spectator arena where the Lions play. To the left are a bank of windows overlooking a community ice pad. The Lions team store is also located in this corridor, and one can also use the store as an entrance to the main arena. Colisee Videotron is what we would call a clone rink. A seating bowl of about 4,000 seats all with good views of the ice and an open concourse running around the top of it. Above the bowl there are suites running down the sides of the building with a press box at centre ice on the penalty box side. The concourse in Trois-Rivieres is a tad narrow and a bit barren. The walls are just plain white save for a really odd mural of Lions players which is well done but for some reason their heads are replaced with various fruits. The team managed to capture the 2025 Kelly Cup as ECHL Champions so there is another wall panel with a collage of photos blown up from the championship celebration.
In addition to the three proudly hung Lions banners for their 2025 league, conference and division titles there is also another banner hanging at the opposite end of the ice for the cities past QMJHL team the Draveurs. This banner acknowledges the team’s existence from 1973 to 1992 but also that teams two Presidents Cup championships which were won back-to-back in 1978 and 1979.
The elephant in the room however is the team does very poorly attendance wise. Despite Quebec being a hockey mad province and the city not having a level this high in decades the ECHL’s Lions seem to play to relative indifference. While the rink was sold out for their Kelly Cup finals games against Toledo in 2025 most nights the crowd looks like the one you see above. The team was owned by the same group that owned the ECHL’s Newfoundland Growlers. Ownership got into money troubles and by March 2024 it appeared both franchises would fold. While the Growlers did fold the league took over operations of the Lions to allow them to finish the season and that off season new ownership was found to allow the team to stay alive. A year later they were league champs. One would imagine that they can’t keep up playing to such sparse crowds on a regular basis. Do people in the area not care about the ECHL? Even with the team being a part of the farm system for the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens and the AHL’s Laval Rocket?
Would the QMJHL fare better here? Or is this just one of those cities that doesn’t support their sports franchises?
While we wait for those questions to be answered the team and the city have a nice facility to call their own. It’s a tad spartan but one hopes with better crowds to give it a better atmosphere and adding more history around the concourse it could rise up the ranks a little.
