Drummondville Voltigeurs
Rink: Centre Marcel Dionne
Capacity: 4,000
Built: 1963
League: QMJHL
City: Drummondville, Quebec
Home Of: Drummondville Voltigeurs
Games Attended: 2
First Game: February 8, 2020 vs Chicoutimi
Most Recent Game: March 10, 2023 vs Rimouski
Unique Arena: #51
QMJHL Arena: #7
The Centre Marcel Dionne was actually the first QMJHL rink I ever visited. My friend and I stopped in at the rink in May 2015 on our way to Quebec City for the Memorial Cup. It took me nearly five years to get back for an actual game, on a sunny but frigid -25 degree day, just as QMJHL hockey in mid-winter is intended to take place, I’m sure. The arena is in the heart of Drummondville not far off Autoroute 20 and tucked into a residential area. There is only a small parking lot on site (which is free) but also plenty of free side street parking. The building’s exterior is actually very similar to the Colisee in Rimouski minus Rimouski’s giant new front facade and lobby. The main lobby in Drummondville is very small, and if you show up during a rush of people you might be stuck in a line that runs out of the front door into the chilly Quebec air.
Maneuvering inside the arena can be a tight and cramped affair. After walking through the small lobby, you are dumped into a concourse that is about 1/3 the way up the seating bowl. I say bowl, but there are only about four rows of seats between the ice and this narrow concourse, while above it the seats extend much higher down the sides of the rink. While I had been inside the arena before, five years prior to my first game here, I walked in on this day seeing it with ice and glass and people for the first time, and I fell in love very quickly. No, it’s not the easiest place to navigate, nor is it the most comfortable, but I am a sucker for a steep pitch in the seating and boy does this have one of the steeper pitches I’ve seen in the CHL. Walking into the building there was a big buzz about the crowd, which isn’t something you see much during warmups outside of the playoffs. There is also exterior “concourses” that run under the seats down the sides of the rink, but those are about the size of a residential hallway. The only reason to use these are to go to the bathrooms or the team store/kiosk that are tucked up under the seats.
My expectations on atmosphere fell only a tad short. Don’t get me wrong, it was fantastic, but the Volts had a very young team and were clearly out played by the older and trade deadline bolstered Chicoutimi Sagunenéens. However, there was a full bus load of Sags fans there, so they certainly helped pick up the slack as their boys in blue held off a late Volts charge for a 3-1 win. I would imagine seeing a game here with a better Voltigeurs squad would probably lead to a louder crowd. The game was pretty packed, and it was certainly a much better atmosphere than about 90% of OHL regular season games.
Apparently very soon a huge renovation will be taking place in Drummondville, much like in Erie, where one of the end walls (the end of the rink with the lobby) will make way for about another 1000 or so seats and a new atrium. I’m glad I got to see the rink before those changes are made, but I will gladly go back again after said renovations take place. One hopes part of it will be newer plastic seats for the rest of the rink. I was surprised at how wide the current wooden seats are, but they are totally straight with no give, so my ass ached a tad by games end. If they do get new seats, I hope they keep the same colour scheme, because in a world of modern rinks where all seats are usually grey or maroon or something drab, the colourful look of Centre Marcel Dionne is fantastic.
