Guelph Storm

All the views of the ice in Guelph are pretty solid and the seats are your standard molded plastic. There is also a small section of extra club seating up in the suite level behind one of the nets (which is where this photo is shot from) that offer much wider and thickly padded seats that offer a great top-down view of the action.

I would say the biggest flaw of the Sleeman Centre is the video scoreboard. It was installed in 2010 and is now the oldest in the league. It’s a tad too small and can get quite pixelated at times, in addition to it freezing up from occasionally. In 2010 when it was installed, having any video board in the league was more than enough, but time has moved fast in these last 15 years and if you don’t have HD, you really seem behind the times.

At the opposite end from these club seats is an open space where the flags hang and sponsorship has been plastered on the walls, but in the last few years the Storm have used the space to welcome in local bands and artists to perform live music pre-game and at intermissions which is a nice touch. It’s been nicknamed ‘The Loft’ after an area of the same name high up in the old Guelph Memorial Gardens.

For the first decade or so that the Sleeman Centre was open it was quite common to see crowds of 2,500-3,000 in between games that would sell out.
However over the years it seems that Friday night Storm games have become an institution in the city and now even when the team is doing poorly on the ice, near sellout crowds are the norm at the Sleeman Centre. Just simply walking up and buying a group of 4 tickets with the view you want before the game isn’t quite as common as it used to be. While the building is packed most nights, I do have to say the atmosphere in Guelph could be better. Sure, it gets loud during goals or in the waning minutes of a close game but sometimes you can hear a pin drop, hopefully one day the people of Guelph can turn up the atmosphere a bit.