STRATFORD, NJ, USA
Note: Whenever I visit a new sports stadium or arena, I like to post some of my thoughts and pictures about it soon after my visit. Believe it or not, there are a lot of “stadium geeks” online, and these posts are pretty popular. Unfortunately, I’ve been lazy for a few months, and I’m only just now getting around to writing this post about my trip to watch the SPHL’s Richmond Renegades play in VA’s Richmond Coliseum. Since it has been a while, my memory isn’t as fresh as I’d like it to be. But hopefully my thoughts are worthwhile anyway.
By February 7th, my grandmom was out of the woods with her heart, and she was resting comfortably in a rehabilitation home.
So, knowing that she was well cared for, I decided not to come back from DC after work on Thursday night. Instead, I hung around DC and met up with my friend, Kevork, on Friday afternoon to make the two-hour trip south to Richmond, Virginia, to take in a minor league hockey game. While there, we tried to see a few of the sights around town.
Kevork, being from Montréal, is a big hockey fan, but he had never seen a minor league game.
I love minor league hockey, but I had never seen a game in Richmond. In fact, it is one of the few semi-nearby cities in which I had never attended a game. Mostly, I wanted to see the arena (you probably know that traveling to visit new sports stadiums is my passion). But I had also never seen an SPHL game before (or any minor pro game below the ECHL level, for that matter), and I was curious about what hockey was like in the “low minors.”
I had wanted to see a game in Richmond for several years, and this seemed like a great opportunity.
The Trip Down
We met up early Friday afternoon and made the trip south on I-95. We stopped at a Waffle House along the way, which gave it a real road-trip feel. There was some traffic, but nothing terrible. As someone from the Philadelphia area, I was surprised to pass a Wawa so far south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but other than that, the trip was uneventful.
When we got to Richmond, we found our way around the city with no problem.
Richmond
I had been through the city of Richmond as a small child on my way to visit relatives in North Carolina, but I remembered almost nothing about it (aside from the fact that you can see the baseball stadium from the highway–what can I say, I guess I’ve always liked stadiums!). So, this was almost like a first visit.
I was only there for a few hours, so I’m certainly no expert, but the city itself reminded me a lot of Syracuse and some other medium-sized cities that I’ve visited for minor league sports. I liked it; it had a nice mix of small town and city, and it just felt like a comfortable place. (Although, I have to admit, having spent so much time in DC may have spoiled me. I used to think that a medium-sized city like this would be the perfect place for me to live; now, I’m thinking I might get bored there.)
Nevertheless, I liked the feel of the place.
We didn’t have much time, so we didn’t put too much on our agenda besides the game. But I like history, so I made a point to visit the Museum of the Confederacy and the Confederate White House.
I enjoyed the Museum of the Confederacy (even though I think I look kind of creepy in that picture), but it was considerably smaller than I expected. We only had about an hour there, and this was almost enough time. I was expecting a massive museum, almost an authoritative Mecca-like shrine to the Confederacy. This wasn’t it. In fact, this reminded of another Civil War museum I visited in Gettysburg. So, while it wasn’t extremely unique, it was a good museum nonetheless. I didn’t have time to nit-pick every little display, but it seemed to do a good job of portraying a neutral, objective account of the Civil War.
I was a little bit nervous walking in, because I was wondering if I’d run into a bunch of neo-seccesionists, ultra-right wingers, and/or klansmen. I have to admit that everyone in the museum was white and Southern, but I felt completely comfortable there, as did Kevork, who is a non-citizen. I don’t think anyone needs to feel nervous about visiting this place. In fact, I recommend it. The museum was good, and the staff was nice; the guy even came back after closing to validate our parking!
The Confederate White House was closed for repairs, but maybe that was for the best; we really wouldn’t have had much time there, anyway. Fortunately, we were able to see it from the street. I was shocked by how banal and unimposing it was.
Here’s Kevork in front of the Confederate White House.
After rushing through the museum, we moved the car to the arena, which was also easy to find. In fact, we probably could have walked, although we didn’t realize how close we were.
We parked and, while walking to the arena, Kevork thought this was a good spot to stop to have a cigarette.
The Richmond Coliseum
The Richmond Coliseum is pretty easy to spot: it’s the big flying saucer sitting in the middle of downtown. We found it easily, and had no trouble finding a place to park nearby.
Right after we parked, I noticed that the guy coming out of the car right next to us was wearing a Trenton Devils hat. I asked if he was from New Jersey. I think he thought I was weird, until I explained that I was from NJ, about 45 minutes south of Trenton. He seemed surprised to hear that I came to Richmond just for a hockey game. Turns out, his son was playing for the visiting team, and he used to play for Trenton.
The gates hadn’t opened yet, so we walked around, hoping to find a way to kill the hour or so that we had to. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot to do before the game in the immediate vicinity of the Coliseum, but eventually we found a small food court a block or so away. The architecture of the building was beautiful, but it was just an ordinary food court. But it seems like this was the place to go before the games; there were about two dozen hockey fans there (including the guy in the Trenton Devils hat) eating and drinking cheap beer.
From there, we headed over to the arena.
The arena immediately reminded me of the Norfolk SCOPE, where I saw an af2 arena football game in the summer of 2000 (of course, I only saw one game there, and it was a long time ago, so I’m not sure how good this comparison actually is.) It also reminded me vaguely of the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.
Even though the arena reminded me of a couple of others, I found the place to be more unique than most arenas.
The futuristic exterior contrasted with the interior brick concourses, which I thought gave it a collegiate feel. (Appropriate, because Richmond is a college town, and the Coliseum hosts its share of NCAA basketball.)
The layout of the seating bowl was also a little unusual.
The building is circular, not a “barn,” and is covered by a large domed ceiling.
There are three levels of seating on the ends, but only two levels along the length of the ice. The second level tapers up towards center ice.
I walked around the place for a little while, just taking it in. Concessions were average (I had chicken fingers), but the team had a nice selection of merchandise (I bought a program and a scarf). The seats were comfortable, inexpensive, and offered good sight-lines.
Hockey Game
Kevork was worried about making the trip without having tickets ahead of time, but I assured him that it wouldn’t be a problem; the Richmond Renegades never sell out.
I was right; we had absolutely no problem getting tickets at all, but I was a little bit surprised by a few things. There were 4081 fans at the game–quite a bit more than I expected. The fans were also more passionate than I expected. It was a little odd, but cool, to see people cheering on a team in a Southern accent; I’m glad hockey winning fans in non-traditional markets in the south.
I was also surprised by the game presentation. Hockey in the low-minors is traditionally unstable: teams move from year to year, management comes up with unrealistic business plans, and teams are shoddily run. That was not the case in Richmond. Everything felt professionally-run, and the ownership seems competent.
In fact, everything about this game felt like the AHL. The city, the arena, the game presentation, all felt like they belonged in the high minors. Of course, Richmond is still a non-traditional hockey city, so an AHL club might not be viable. But it seemed to me like fan support is the only thing keeping Richmond from moving up the hockey pyramid.
The quality of play was enjoyable, and also a little better than I expected.
In the end, the Renegades lost to the Huntsville Havoc 4-2. I was cheering on the home team, but I had a great time anyway.
Recap
After leaving the game, Kevork and I both kind of wished we had booked a hotel so we could have explored Richmond’s nightlife. But we hadn’t, and I was trying to catch an early bus back to Philly the next morning, so we headed back to the DC area. The ride home went fine, and we were both glad that we made the trip.
We got back safely and, fittingly, watched Bon Cop, Bad Cop before turning in for the night. (Three stars out of five for the movie; definitely worth seeing if you’re a hockey fan and/or if you have any interest in linguistic divisions in Canada.)
Overall, there’s certainly no need to rush back, but Richmond was unique and definitely worthwhile. I enjoyed the game, the arena, and the fans tremendously I was impressed all the way around.
My current hockey city and league tally
I have now seen hockey games in the following places (the links are to my comments on them):
NHL: Philadelphia, Ottawa, Washington, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Anaheim, NY Islanders
AHL: Hershey x2, Philadelphia x2, Syracuse, Binghamton
ECHL: Trenton, Atlantic City, Reading
SPHL: Richmond
OHL: Toronto
QMJHL: Drummondville (1/3 of a pre-season game only; I had a bad experience)
NCAA Div. 1: ECAC: Princeton
ACHA Div. 3: Shippensburgh in Hershey
France Super 16: Mulhouse
France Ligue 1: Strasbourg
Switzerland LNA: Basel, Fribourg, Lugano
Germany DEL: Freiburg
IIHF: World Championship in Ostrava, Czech Rep.
I have also seen a dozen or so other hockey arenas, but not attended games there.
Filed under: Ice hockey, Life, Nana, Posts with Pictures, Sports, Stadiums, Travel Tagged: | daytrip from DC, Richmond, Richmond Coliseum, Richmond Renegades, SPHL
