Gary BUTTERWORTH Online

STRATFORD, NJ, USA

I actually had a pretty big weekend for once. Yesterday, I went to Giants Stadium for the international friendly between the US and the Argentine national soccer teams. I’ll have a separate post about that later.
This post is about Saturday, when my dad and I went to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to watch Game 5 of the Calder Cup Finals between the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the Chicago Wolves.

It was a little bit odd to look at the thermometer on my dad’s car and see a reading of 100 degrees F while heading to an ice hockey game, but we made the trip nonetheless. Wilkes-Barre was cooler than South Jersey, but it still didn’t feel like hockey weather. I’ve always thought the North American hockey season runs too late, but that’s a topic for another day.

ANYWAY!

This was my first visit to the Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza (formerly the First Union Arena) in Wilkes-Barre. I had heard some bad things about this particular arena. While it wasn’t perfect, I really liked the place.

The Wachovia Arena is nine years old, and for the first few years, it was almost impossible to get hockey tickets there.

Characteristically for minor league sports, playoff tickets are easier to obtain in Wilkes-Barre, but they still drew a good crowd.

The building itself was interesting. It’s not fancy like the new AHL arena in Hershey, but it’s not nearly as drab as I had feared.

It’s mostly a concrete building, but it doesn’t feel unfinished or anything like that. And it’s unique enough that it’s interesting despite its utilitarian design.

One thing I found interesting was the ends of the arena were different from each other. One end is rounded, with permanent seats; the other flat, with temporary seating. For concerts, these seats would be removed.

I think these pictures make the arena look bigger than it is.

The arena seats 8300 fans for hockey, but it’s still pretty intimate. All of the seats are close to the action, and the upper-level seats are pretty steep. Fitting that many fans into such a small space makes for a great atmosphere. This is definitely one of the loudest and most intimidating minor league hockey rinks I’ve visited. The fans were great. (And no one gave me any trouble about my Hershey Bears shirt.)

One common complaint about the Wachovia Arena is that the concourse is cramped. That was definitely true, even though this game was not a sell-out.

There was actually enough room to circulate through the building behind the last row of seats without entering the actual concourse, so that does help things a little bit. But, like I said, the concourse was cramped.

The concessions were pretty good. Northeast Pennsylvania is known for Eastern European food (or so I’ve read), and one stand was serving pierogies and potato pancakes. I also saw some local beers on tap.

I had the fried pierogies (with butter and onions), which I think were only $3.50, and they were very good.

In the AHL, I’m a Hershey Bears fan, so this game didn’t really mean much to me. But I was kind of pulling for Chicago to win. It would have been cool to see a Cup presentation. And Dennis Bonvie, who is something of a minor league hockey legend, is retiring after this season. It would be cool to say that I saw his last game.

Chicago was definitely the favorite to win, but Wilkes-Barre won, 5-1. (It looked to me like they were helped out by a few off-sides plays that weren’t whistled dead.)

Wilkes-Barre survived to take the series back to Chicago, down 3 games to 2.

After the final home game of his career, Bonvie saluted the crowd.

My current hockey city and league tally

Since I’m not going to Chicago this week, this trip ended the 2007-08 hockey season for Gary.

This was a pretty good year for me; I saw hockey in six different cities–four for the first time.

I have now seen hockey games in the following places (the links are to my posts on them):

NHL: Philadelphia, Ottawa, Washington, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Anaheim, NY Islanders
AHL: Hershey x2, Philadelphia x2, Syracuse, Binghamton, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
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: Shippensburg 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 attended an Arena Football 2 game at the Norfolk Scope, which is also an AHL hockey arena.

I have also seen the hockey arenas in the following cities, but not attended games there: Bridgeport, Providence, Albany, Rochester, Indianapolis, San Diego, Elmira, Ambri-Piotta, Boston, New York MSG, Montréal, and Toronto x2.

On the agenda for next year is the new arena in Newark, NJ, and Madison Square Garden.  Other than that, it’s hard to predict which cities I will visit, because I’ve already seen most of the nearby arenas.