Kitchener Rangers

Rink: Kitchener Memorial Auditorium
Capacity: 7,777
Built: 1951
League: OHL
City: Kitchener, Ontario
Home Of: Kitchener Rangers
Games Attended: 38
First Game: August 31, 2008 vs Brampton
Most Recent Game: April 14, 2025 vs Windsor
Unique Arena: #14
OHL Arena: #10

The Kitchener Memorial Auditorium is the oldest operating building in the OHL, just beating out the Sudbury Arena (which is not long for this world) by a few months. The Aud sits on land adjacent to Highway 7 towards the eastern side of the city. When it was built, it dominated an area of farmland. Now it sits in a neighborhood but is part of a large complex that houses a couple other ice pads, baseball diamonds (including the home of the IBL Panthers) and thankfully plenty of free parking. However, getting out after a Rangers game will take a bit of patience.

The Aud has one of the most gorgeous front facades in all of junior hockey. However the building behind that facade has gotten larger and larger over the years with renovation after renovation to keep the admired rink up to modern standards, to the point that the original facade now seems small in front of it.

Walking into the Aud truly feels like stepping back in time… to a point. Sure there are the modern amenities like a giant HD video scoreboard, laser lights and fog machines. But the bowl itself is steep, cramped and offers amazing views of the ice. The Aud originally held around 5,000+ at capacity, but renovations over the years have added seats into about every spot one could think of. The biggest renovation happened in 2011-2012, when the top of the building was removed on one side so that they could extend the seating even further into the heavens. This makes the rink a tad lopsided now with one side having some 10-12 more rows of seating. Those seats do extend up behind some of the rafters, which offers views obstructed from the scoreboard but still a clear top-down view of the ice. It also increased capacity to nearly 8,000 and gave the Aud another 20 years of life at least.

While the rink isn’t quite the same as it used to be with the new addition it still has a good atmosphere and is mostly full every night. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Aud gets another crack at hosting the Memorial Cup before the Rangers eventually have to build a new rink sometime in the not-so-distant future.

Different coloured seats for different sections is not something you really see in junior hockey anymore as most new rinks (even huge ones like in London) all get the same coloured seats. With the different coloured seats of red and gold and the side seats extending all the way to the roof it really gives off a Maple Leaf Gardens vibe to the place. In a lot of ways, it could be considered the Maple Leaf Gardens of the OHL. One day father time will catch up to the Aud and a new rink will be built in Kitchener, but as of this writing those plans haven’t hit the horizon yet. I have this arena ranked number one in the CHL for a reason and if you love junior hockey at all you should definitely go there while you still can.

Even if the Rangers suck, go Storm!