A rink serious about boarding

Visitors had to come up big in Calgary

(Second in an occasional series)

Every now and then, I am asked how many arenas I have covered games in, and the answer never changes: “I have no idea.”

That’s because the list would include numerous exhibition games in locales as diverse as Johnstown, Moncton, New Brunswick and Portland, Ore. What’s more, almost every NHL team that’s been in business since I began covering hockey for The Pittsburgh Press in 1983 has occupied more than one facility.

It seems safe to assume my total is flirting with triple-digits.

A lot of those buildings, particularly those that were a one-time preseason stop, have faded from memory, but some nuggets remain from many others. In a few cases, such as the Forum in Montreal, the recollections are as fresh as if the arena in question had just been visited yesterday.

To keep this feature somewhat manageable, the list of venues that will be discussed (over several installments) will be limited to those which either have been razed or which, at the very least, no longer play host to NHL games, preseason or otherwise.

Here we go:

The Corral (Calgary) – The Flames began playing in the Saddledome in the fall of 1983, my first season on the Penguins/NHL beat for The Pittsburgh Press, so I never covered a game at the Corral, which was just across the street. I did, however, attend a practice there, and one aspect of the place made quite an enduring impression.

The boards around the rink were significantly higher than those in other NHL buildings. (The league mandates that boards be between 40 and 48 inches high, with 42 considered the standard.)

Strange as the boards looked, they apparently were a shrewd choice for a city celebrated for the annual Calgary Stampede, since they reportedly were selected because they made it easier to convert the facility when it hosted rodeo events that required the arena floor to be covered with dirt.

Cow Palace (Daly City, Calif.) – This place, which was home to the San Jose Sharks during their initial seasons in the NHL, came by its name honestly. It was obvious upon inhaling once or twice upon entering the building that it hosted livestock-related events.

While that pervasive scent was the Cow Palace’s most prominent feature, it would be folly to ignore that visiting teams (and perhaps the Sharks) had to ascend a flight of steps to get to their locker room. (Unlike Chicago Stadium, they were situated one level above, not below, ice level.)

The Penguins didn’t really mind making the climb, since they routinely abused the Sharks during San Jose’s first few seasons in the league, and their talented offensive players tended to run up their point totals when they went to Daly City.

Fabulous Forum (Inglewood, Calif.) – It used to be relatively common for NHL arenas to situate their press box in the public seating area – that actually was the arrangement at the Civic Arena when the Penguins entered the league in 1967 – and the Fabulous Forum was one of them.

The most impressive part of the building probably was the banners honoring Los Angeles Lakers’ championships and all-time greats. Certainly, those were more memorable than the trough urinals in the men’s room – or most of the performances the Penguins turned in there.

Indeed, perhaps the most unforgettable moment in a Penguins-Kings game there might have been the night Penguins winger Jim McGeough – who had exceptional speed that his hands didn’t come close to matching – slammed into the boards so hard that it seemed as if he might burst into flames.

Florida Suncoast Dome (St. Petersburg, Fla.) – This venue would later be known as the Thunderdome, but that was long after the Penguins and Kings drew a then-record NHL crowd of 25,581 on Sept. 19, 1990.

For an exhibition game, no less.

On a temporary ice surface.

The event was intended to illustrate the viability of placing a team in Florida, and it clearly succeeded in that regard, since Tampa Bay entered the NHL a few years later.

Predictably, the game was nothing special. The Penguins won, 5-3, and a recollection that can’t be confirmed but is impossible to shake is that one of the tubes carrying coolant under the ice surface was sliced by a skate, leading to green fluid being sprayed on the ice.