Rockford IceHogs
Rink: BMO Harris Bank Center
Capacity: 6,200
Built: 1981
League: AHL
City: Rockford, Illinois
Home Of: Rockford IceHogs
Games Attended: 1
Only Game: April 13, 2024 vs Milwaukee
Unique Arena: #88
AHL Arena: #8
The BMO Harris Bank Center (originally called the Rockford Metro Center) is a big square orange building in downtown Rockford, Illinois just off the banks of the Rock River. It’s a pretty boring-looking building, with orange siding and some windows on all sides, and a small addition on the west corner. Most of the entrances are up a flight of stairs around 25 feet off the street, and it dumps you into the main concourse. On the west side of the building there is a large parking garage with a pedestrian bridge that goes straight to the concourse level of the building, which is probably nice in the middle of winter.
The BMO Center doesn’t feel like it was made for hockey specifically in mind. The seats are laid out in a U shape with a small concourse in the bowl halfway up. The entire lower bowl is made up of collapsible seating, and the seats themselves are not very good to sit in. Our original tickets were near the top of the lower bowl but after just seconds of sitting in them we decided to move up to an empty corner in the upper bowl.
The top of the U as you can see is mostly standing room areas with a bar/lounge area at ice level. The ice comes right up to the wall so the standing room spots on the main concourse level are literally hovering over the top of the glass at that end. They actually provide a fantastic view of the game if you don’t mind standing. However, putting seats in this end would be impossible without blowing out that end of the rink and building further out.
There are only suites on one side at the top of the upper bowl. The opposite side has an elevated spot for the press as well as another bar/lounge area. As you can see in this photo the seats here aren’t exactly designed with hockey in mind, as from this spot the seats face directly at centre ice and you would have to turn your head to the right to see the net right in front of you. Luckily there aren’t too many seats like this in Rockford, and with the balconies of standing room in that end it doesn’t turn into full on Barclays Center.
The Rockford IceHogs have been in operation since 1999 playing out of the old UHL, but have found themselves in the AHL since 2007 and seem to be going strong with now being affiliated with the nearby Chicago Blackhawks. The fanbase in Rockford is very passionate, and while the building wasn’t sold out it was about three quarters full with loud knowledgeable fans that made the Rockford experience a pleasant one. Also, I found the team store to be very impressive with a wide range of IceHogs (lol) products that one could ever want. Also of note, the team seems to have excellent marketing and promotions as one area of the concourse had several of the teams one-off specialty jerseys hung on the wall, and they were all very impressive and clever. Rockford’s nickname is apparently the Screw City named for the large screw manufacturing industry in the area. They have third jerseys where the logo is for Screw City, and the team all night was referred to as the Screw City IceHogs. Again, a hilariously untraditional hockey name but clever marketing, nonetheless.
The arena isn’t anything overly special. I’ve seen much better, and I’ve seen much worse but kudos to the team and fans for having a solid minor pro franchise to call their own.
