Northeastern Huskies
Rink: Matthews Arena
Capacity: 19,289
Built: 1910
Demolished: 2026
League: NCAA
City: Boston, Massachusetts
Home Of: Northeastern Huskies
Games Attended: 1
Only Game: November 16, 2024 vs New Hampshire
Unique Arena: #100
NCAA Arena: #2
The Boston Arena originally opened in 1910, but was destroyed by a fire in December 1918, so a replacement Boston Arena was rebuilt on the site. It opened on New Year’s Day, 1921, and operated for over 100 years, eventually being renamed Matthews Arena in 1982 after Northeastern University Chairman George Matthews. The university itself did not take over the arena until the fall of 1979. The arena was actually the original home of the Boston Bruins, who played their first ever regular season game here on December 1, 1924, beating the Montreal Maroons 2-1. The Bruins played here until the opening of the famous Boston Garden in 1928.
The photo above might be my worst exterior arena shot on this website. Unfortunately for me, I had gone to the Bruins game that afternoon and couldn’t get down to Matthews Arena until after dark. There was also construction going on in front of the arena and this regrettably was the best shot I could get.
Once you entered Matthews Arena and have your ticket scanned, you entered into a large hall area which felt like it could host galas or wedding reception-type events. This area ran behind one end of the rink itself, and had the only bathrooms and concession stands in the building. There was also a small souvenir table set up. There were archways and large chandeliers hanging, which as I said, gave it some kind of grand ballroom feel. It’s very of the time from when it was built, over 100 years ago. On one side of this space there was a bank of windows and doors that led into the rink itself at the top of the lower bowl behind one of the nets. There was a narrow concourse that led around the top of the lower bowl, but only in a U shape. Same went for the upper bowl concourse as well. In the lower bowl the far end of the rink housed the Zamboni garage area. The upper bowl did fully circle the building, however, the upper bowl in the far end had been deemed not safe for crowds to gather in the finals years of its life, as the actual structure of the building itself did not pass code. This end of the upper bowl was blocked off completely from fan access and the seating area itself was tarped off. Originally the rink only had one bowl, and the upper bowl was added later, fit into the existing structure of the arena. Due to this, the upper bowl was incredibly close to the ice surface, more so than any other arena I’ve been in. Sitting in the front row of the upper deck you actually had to lean forward to see the near boards and look almost straight down at the ice in front of you. It’s a fantastic view of the game; however, this means if you were anywhere further back than the first row, your view was slightly obstructed. There were only about four rows of seats in the upper bowl down the sides, while the ends expanded to nearly ten rows, much like a mini Quebec Colisée.
Most of the lower bowl seats had a decent enough view of the action. In true old building fashion, the good seats were great, but the bad seats were really bad. The best example of this was in the corners of the lower bowl where the seats extend much further up. Unfortunately for people in those seats, they got so far up under the overhang of the upper bowl that some seats have as much as half the ice surface blocked off from view. Also, a whole centre ice section of seats in the lower bowl were blocked off for media and cameras for the game broadcasts. There was also a proper press box high in the rafters on the opposite side of the ice.
The thing that has always appealed to me the most about NCAA hockey is the atmosphere. My first NCAA game was at Yost Arena in Michigan, and it was incredible, with a giant student section with soccer-like songs and chants that were definitely not PG rated, a band and tons of fans supporting the team. At Northeastern the student section was in the non-condemned end of the upper bowl. They give it a good effort but were nowhere on the level of Michigan. The rest of the building on the night we were there was also half full at best, so the atmosphere was a tad disappointing. Now comparing a much smaller school like Northeastern to one of the largest programs in the country (Michigan) probably isn’t fair, but it taught me to temper expectations when going to smaller NCAA schools in the future. The walls of the upper bowl were dotted with the team flags throughout the same conference as Northeastern and the rafters filled with banners showing off the Huskies success over the decades of both the men’s and women’s teams, as well as a banner commemorating the arena as the original home of the NHL’s Boston Bruins. One of the only signs of new tech in the building was the scoreboard hanging over centre ice, which is crisp HD quality and set up more longways with super wide screens for the sides and smaller screens for the ends much like in Kalamazoo. All of this is under a beautiful arched wooden roof.
Matthews Arena unfortunately is no more. It was found in recent years that the foundation was actually slowly sinking. When we attended a game here in November 2024, we were under the impression that it was already the final season for the arena. That proved to be false as its life was extended slightly, but only until December of 2025. The final game was played on December 13, 2025 and demolition began just a few weeks later. Once demolition began it didn’t take long for Matthews Arena to become a pile of rubble and the plans now are to build a new arena for Northeastern University on the same site. While I was slightly disappointed with the atmosphere and the game itself was a bit of a bore, I was so happy to experience Matthews Arena it met with the wrecking ball. The arena is now just a part of the history books but what a history it had.
