Chicago Wolves
Rink: Allstate Arena
Capacity: 16,692
Built: 1980
League: AHL
City: Rosemont, Illinois
Home Of: Chicago Wolves
Games Attended: 1
Only Game: April 14, 2024 vs Grand Rapids
Unique Arena: #89
AHL Arena: #9
The original name was much more awesome. Once the Rosemont Horizon, the now-named Allstate Arena opened in the northwestern Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois in 1980, right under the landing glideslope of a runway at O’Hare International Airport, one of the nation’s busiest hubs. Due to being right in line with the runway, the building had certain height restrictions it had to meet and thus it isn’t a very tall building. It also has one of the strangest exterior designs of a rink I’ve ever seen, with many people comparing it to a mosque. While this would be considered the front facade of the building, there doesn’t seem to be a main entrance, as there are entries on all four sides that dump you directly into the lower bowl concourse. As you will read in the other captions for my Allstate Arena photos, I quickly learned that this is one of the worst-designed hockey rinks I’ve ever been to.
As I mentioned previously, the building had height restrictions due to its proximity to O’Hare. These days you would likely just build down into the ground. While ice level is dug a bit down from street level, it doesn’t go down very far. That meant that they had to fit two bowls with enough seats for nearly 17,000 people into a height that just cannot properly accommodate that. What you see before you are two bowls that have the shallowest pitch I’ve ever seen at a hockey arena. In most rinks with a two-bowl setup, the lower bowl usually has a bit less of a pitch than the upper bowl. The same can be said for the Horizon, but bowl bowls are comically flat. You could have people sitting nearly 10 rows in front of you and their heads will still block parts of the ice. Sitting in the upper bowl isn’t much better, but if you can snag the first row it would easily be the best view of the ice. Because of the shallow pitch of the seats, anything more than the first couple rows rink side are set much further back from the ice, and it makes you feel a bit disconnected with the game itself.
At one end of the ice where the Zamboni tunnel is, there is actually a small concourse pathway between the suites and the top of the lower bowl seats. That means if you spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on a suite in that end, you would have people walking in front of it all game long. Also at that end randomly is a plexiglass booth that appears to be the control centre for the production, which includes lots and lots of pyro. I can appreciate the effort of the Wolves wanting to put on a show and a great production for their fans. But the pre-game player intros were a tad overkill. In some cities, players hit the ice with some flames shooting out from somewhere. Others might have a firework or two go off, or maybe sirens. In Chicago, it’s all of the above. The amount of pyro and fireworks going off was insane, to the point the haze hanging in the rink when the game actually started was thick as hell. Even worse you could smell it very well; not exactly what I want to be smelling for nearly 3 hours. This photo is edited a bit, but trust me the haze was much worse than what you see here.
A couple more odd things about the bowl. In the upper bowl, for some reason the sections in each of the four corners are raised slightly higher than the sides and ends. Also, for a rink of its size I was surprised to see a standard def video board, which is already a tad small for the size of the building. There are extra scoreboards that hang from the ceiling on the sides at centre ice. The press box itself is scaffolding built over one of the upper bowl sections.
The concourses are another mess on their own. The lower bowl concourse isn’t too bad. Not only do the walls show off history of the Wolves, who’ve called the arena home since 1994, but also shows off the variety of other shows and events that have frequented the Horizon over the decades. One odd thing however is half of the concourse being covered in carpet. Not just any carpet, but loud carpet that would be seen in places like multiplex movie theatres or laser tag venues. The upper bowl concourse is very very strange. There are no escalators to get up there, you got to go via staircases to the top of the bowl. There is a walkway around fully around the top of the upper bowl, but any concessions are hidden behind the walls and are through a maze of wheelchair ramps. Bathrooms are located on a landing halfway up between the lower and upper bowl. So, if you sit in row 1 of the upper bowl you have to walk back up nearly 20 rows to then walk down two flights of stairs to get to the bathroom. Also, every section of the Horizon is very wide, so there’s about 30 seats between each aisle.
The biggest (and possibly only) positive to the arena is the gorgeous wooden roof. It actually originally collapsed during construction in 1979 and killed 5 workers. The results are stunning though, and it feels like a roof you would see in a truly old school building, not exactly something from 1980. The wooden roof is for acoustic reasons, as it’s there to help muffle the sounds of commercial jet liners passing directly overhead. To its credit I didn’t hear a single plane. Also of note, this picture really captures how far you are from the ice even in row 1 of the upper bowl.
The Chicago Wolves were originally an IHL team founded in 1994 and have always called the Horizon home. Oddly the Wolves have never had any sort of partnership with the city’s NHL club. Mainly because the team was almost meant to be the anti-Blackhawks. In the days when Bill Wirtz ruled with an iron fist, many decided to flock to the alternative in the Wolves. While things got much better in Blackhawks land and crowds flocked back during the 2010s dynasty, the Wolves to their credit still have a loyal fanbase and are one of the longer-tenured teams in the AHL today. The rink doesn’t exactly get filled to the brim, but with a near NHL-sized capacity I don’t blame them. Also, when the team does get hot and win titles (they’ve got five to their name) they pack the place pretty well.
All in all the Rosemont Horizon is a horrible venue for hockey, but it has lasted 30 years with the Wolves and there appears to be no end in sight. I am actually glad I got to see it in person. If nothing else, it’s unique.
