Penticton Vees
Rink: South Okanagan Events Centre
Capacity: 5,000
Built: 2008
League: WHL
City: Penticton, British Columbia
Home Of: Penticton Vees
Games Attended: 1
Only Game: March 6, 2026 vs Wenatchee
Unique Arena: #121
WHL Arena: #24
In the past, there have been two ways for a city to acquire themselves a CHL franchise. One, you get an expansion team and build up your organization from scratch. Or two, you buy a franchise in other city and move it to where you want to own a team. Sometimes you give it a totally new identity, sometimes you keep the existing one. But in recent years, a new option has come along for the CHL. While technically you still have to get an expansion franchise or buy/relocate an existing one, you can do that via bringing up an already existing organization from another league entirely. We saw this a couple years ago with the BCHL’s Wenatchee Wild buying the WHL’s Winnipeg Ice and moving them to Wenatchee, but keeping the identity of the existing BCHL team. That has happened again but now with an expansion team, as the BCHL’s Penticton Vees, the long-time premier franchise of the BCHL, has moved up to become the WHL’s 23rd current franchise. At no point in the history of the CHL has an expansion team come into the league with such a rich and successful history ready to go up against counterparts like Gatineau, Peterborough or Regina.
The history of the Vees can be traced back to the early 1950s when the organization was a senior men’s team. The franchise won the 1954 Allan Cup for top senior team in the country. Back in those days the Canadian representative at the World Hockey Championship would be the defending Allan Cup Champions, which in 1955 was Penticton, and the Vees won the 1955 World Championship. By the early 1960s the team shifted its focus to junior hockey, joining the BCHL and eventually winning 14 league championships as well as a slew of division titles. In 2008 with the Memorial Arena aging, the city built the new South Okanagan Events Centre, and the Vees as a BCHL team had a home that was better than many CHL arenas.
With the NCAA lifting the ban on CHL players in 2024 many things changed, and some franchises in the BCHL and USHL began looking at the CHL as a real option. In 2025 the Vees, after being in the BCHL for over 60 years, moved over to the WHL as an expansion team. While the roster itself was truly made through expansion, the franchise is anything but, and the building has quickly become one of the premier home rinks of the 61 across the CHL.
With all the hype and lead up above, it may surprise those who don’t know much about the SOEC that it is at its core one of the many rinks across the CHL that would be easily classified as a clone arena. With a capacity of roughly 5,000 people, an open top concourse and a restaurant above the club section of seats it sounds like many others reviewed on this website. Walking in I was struck right away that it felt very much like the Tribute Communities Centre in Oshawa, but it also felt slightly more intimate with perhaps a slightly lower roof. However, it feels bigger than similar arenas in Vancouver, Sarnia and Guelph. Entering the arena at street level, there is a small team store just to the left before heading up a large flight of stairs that leads you to the main concourse at the top of the seating bowl. The concourse is wide and has plenty of standing room areas that are almost identical to those you see in Oshawa, with a brick wall under a small ledge for drinks, though minus the coat hooks that the ‘Shwa has. There are plenty of washrooms and concessions available that go beyond just your regular rink garb. There is also a secondary pop-up Vees souvenir stand. On the club seat side is a large restaurant that the concourse splits around, with a path within the bowl and one that goes behind it.
The area behind the restaurant is one of the true gems of the CHL. While Penticton might not be your first guess on its location, the SOEC holds the British Columbia Hockey Hall of Fame that not only runs the entire length of the building goal line to goal line, but also has another large corridor that offshoots towards the arena’s secondary ice pad. You could arrive at doors open and spend the full hour before puck drop checking out and reading the displays that feature every hockey team in BC from the NHL, to WHL, to BCHL to senior men’s hockey with jerseys, photos, trophies and an array of other memorabilia. I used to say Peterborough had the best in arena hall of fame in the CHL, but sorry Petes fans, Penticton has you beat. On top of all of that, the rafters are loaded with banner after banner showing off the team’s success over the decades – so many banners that they cover three sides of the building. Instead of retired numbers, the team has a ring of honour for various alumni of the Vees that include Paul Kariya, Andy Moog, Duncan Keith and Ray Ferraro just to name a few.
The arena has a level full of suites above the seating bowl as well as some extra seating in the ends that wasn’t being used the night we were there. It wasn’t a packed house at our game, with an announced attendance of 3,758. That’s a decent enough crowd, and they were very into the game and made a decent amount of noise. This wasn’t Everett or Erie levels of loud, but I found the sound they made surpassed many crowds of just under 4,000 I’ve seen in the OHL. Many of the fans wore Vees colours with pride, and many even wore fantastic team jackets that I am sure predate the team joining the WHL in 2025. The logo and colours were everywhere. The only complaint I had about the arena was the video scoreboard, which is original from the building’s construction in 2008. By 2008 junior hockey standards the video board would’ve fit right in, but the technology has advanced so much in the last two decades that a standard definition 4:3 video screen just doesn’t cut it these days. Credit to the AV staff in Penticton who clearly know what they’re doing, with a professional level presentation of graphics and even intermission panels with game highlights and breakdowns. It’s just hard to see. The PA announcer also sounded slightly garbled at times, so some new speakers might be needed too. During our trip we pointed this out on Twitter, and we were quickly informed that the building is planning to replace the video board with a new one in the summer of 2026, so these complaints should be very short-lived.
In going to Penticton, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was expecting for my 61st CHL arena. My expectations weren’t low, but they weren’t sky high either. Regardless of what I was expecting, I was impressed with the entire setup in Penticton; not just the arena but the town and people as well. Despite being there on a dreary grey day in early March, you could tell that the beach town at the south end of Okanagan Lake would be a fantastic place to visit during the tourist season. The people were also super friendly, and I was stopped several times in the concourse when people noticed my Guelph Storm jersey, wanting to talk and asking my opinion on what I thought of Penticton.
As we departed the next morning, I was slightly sad to be leaving, but also looking forward to coming back in just a couple months when the Memorial Cup is just up the road in Kelowna. I might not get to another Vees game again for a long time, but Penticton quickly has become one of my favourite stops on my journey through the CHL.
