THANK YOU, MATTHEWS
THANK YOU, MATTHEWS
THANK YOU, MATTHEWS
That was the chant raining down from the students in the balcony as a torch was literally passed from one generation to the next following the final game ever played at Northeastern’s Matthews Arena.
The game did not go the way the Huskies faithful would have wanted. Boston University scored two goals 18 seconds apart in the final two minutes of regulation to flip a 3-2 deficit to a 4-3 Terriers win that temporarily put a damper on the evening’s festivities.
But, Saturday night was not about one game. It was about 115 years. It was about the closing of one of the true cathedrals of Boston sports, the place formerly known as Boston Arena.
“It’s a lot bigger than just our team,” said Northeastern senior captain Vinny Borgesi. “And I told our guys that after the game. … It’s a lot bigger than just what we have in that locker room.”
Borgesi’s hands were the last to touch that torch, as he led his teammates on one final skate around the ice, figuratively carrying it into the next era of Northeastern athletics.
That torch had been held by representatives connected to nearly every decade of Matthews Arena’s history. Johnny Bucyk, accompanied by his nephew and Northeastern alum Randy Bucyk, started the chain as the representative of the Bruins, who made this Arena their first home. Current Bruin Jordan Harris, who played here from 2018-22 and served as captain his senior year, was second-to-last before Borgesi.
And just like that, it was over. The slow trudge to the exits began, everyone taking a couple extra moments to give the Arena one or two final looks.
“It’s just a moment that I’ll cherish forever,” Borgesi said afterwards, effectively speaking for so many others who made a point to be here for this final game.
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The history of Boston sports cannot be told without Matthews Arena, known as Boston Arena until Northeastern bought it in 1979.
It opened in 1910, two years before Fenway Park. Until its teardown begins in the coming weeks, it clings to the title of oldest multi-purpose athletic facility in the world. It has a claim to being the oldest indoor hockey rink in the world, too, although the Calumet Colosseum (opened in 1913) in Michigan might object since the original Boston Arena was destroyed by a fire in 1918 before re-opening in 1921.
Both the Bruins and Celtics played their first-ever home games here, the Bruins on Dec. 1, 1924, against the Montreal Maroons, and the Celtics on Nov. 5, 1946, against the Chicago Stags. That Bruins debut doubled as the first-ever NHL game to be played in the United States. A second NHL team, the Carolina Hurricanes, can trace its history to this building as well – the WHA’s New England Whalers split home games between here and the Boston Garden their first two seasons before moving to Hartford, and eventually Carolina.
The Arena was the first indoor home of hockey for all four Beanpot schools. The Beanpot itself started here in 1952. Harvard was the first to move out when it opened the Donald C. Watson Rink on campus in 1956. Boston College followed with its McHugh Forum in 1958. Boston University did not leave until 1971, when it opened Walter Brown Arena.
Northeastern, of course, never left. The school bought the Arena from the Metropolitan District Commission in 1979, briefly renamed it Northeastern Arena, and then Matthews Arena in 1982 in honor of chairman emeritus George Matthews.
Northeastern basketball moved into the building in 1981. Reggie Lewis starred here from 1983-87 before being drafted by the Celtics. His funeral was also held here on Aug. 2, 1993, perhaps the most somber moment in the Arena’s 115-year history.
Several U.S. presidents spoke or held rallies here, including Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. The list of concerts held here features names like Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, The Beach Boys, The Doors, Ray Charles, and Bob Dylan. Marvelous Marvin Hagler won some of his earliest professional fights here. Muhammad Ali trained here before fighting Sonny Liston in Lewiston, Maine, and Babe Ruth went for a few skates here during his down time.
All the athletes, coaches, staff, faculty and students that have called Matthews Arena home over the years would inevitably learn much of that history at some point. It was not a prerequisite to appreciate the building, though.
Bruins defenseman Jordan Harris, who played at Northeastern from 2018-22 and captained the Huskies as a senior, grew up in Haverhill, but didn’t go to Northeastern games as a kid or know much about Matthews. That all changed the first time he walked through the Arena’s doors as a prospective recruit.
“When I toured, I was probably 16 years old. And walking in, that was like, the thing that stood out,” Harris said. “Obviously the campus and the coaches and everything, and I love how the team played, but Matthews was honestly one of the selling points.”
One of Harris’ first games here as a freshman in 2018 was a come-from-behind 3-2 win over a St. Cloud State team that was ranked No. 2 in the country at the time. Harris’ love of Matthews and the students who occupied “The Dog House” in the balcony was sealed that night.
“The place just went insane,” Harris remembered. “And that was one of the first times I was like, ‘Wow. This is really cool.’ And after that, I mean, the student section speaks for itself, just seeing kids up there, the band, kids taking their shirts off, just stupid stuff like that. That's the stuff you remember. It was really special, for sure.”
It's an experience that Northeastern athletic director Jim Madigan has heard and seen countless times over the 44 years that he has called Matthews home. Madigan played for the Huskies from 1981-85. He was an assistant coach from 1986-93. As the university’s assistant director of physical plant service in the 1990s, he helped oversee renovations to Matthews that included reshaping the ice surface from its old 200x85-foot “oval” with shallow corners to a bigger, more modern 200x90 sheet. Madigan was the Huskies’ head coach from 2011-21 before moving to his current role as athletic director.
“The arena was unique with the upper balcony and how it cantilevered over the loge,” Madigan said of the Arena’s appeal. “It never reached the ice surface, but if you walked all around that first row of the balcony, it’s pretty close to the ice surface. So, the fans are on top, particularly in that first balcony, behind the nets, and all that. So, when people got in the building and they saw and listened to how loud it was, and how rabid the fans, our Dog House student group were, it was a different, unique configuration versus the newer buildings. A lot of the schools we played against had newer buildings, right? So, we had still that old style, Boston Garden upper balcony.
“And people love that. And we're going to maintain a balcony in the new building. We're not going to have as many rows, but we're going to have four rows of balcony seating to kind of stay with that same look and feel of the old building. So, what Jordan said about his experience is a consistent thought and a memory for many folks. They just love being in the building, playing in the building, and having the fan support that they did.”
Madigan could spend days sharing memories and stories about Matthews, but describing what this place means to him could ultimately be boiled down to one word: Home.
“For me, it's home,” he told WEEI.com last week. “It’s like going to your own home, wherever you live. Matthews Arena is home to me. There's a comfort level. You're relaxed. It's like, I don't own the arena, but there's ownership in there, because you have pride in the building, and you've got pride in the facility, and it's been home. So many great things have happened to me in that building, and memories in that building.
“I not only grew up in that building, but my wife attended Northeastern. She came to a lot of my games. We went out in college. And then, my daughters went to Northeastern. But they were in that building when they weren't even born, when my wife was pregnant with them. And now they have their own experiences in the building, and skated in the building. So, it's home to all of us. Home is where you have family and friends always around you, and that's how I looked at Matthews Arena. It was always my friends and family around me at Matthews Arena.”
One of the final Matthews moments with those friends came this past Monday, when Madigan hosted a final skate at the Arena for some of Boston hockey’s royalty. Dozens of former and current college and high school coaches who competed in the Arena came out to say their goodbyes, including BU’s Jack Parker, BC’s Jerry York, Harvard’s Bill Cleary, and New Hampshire’s Dick Umile.
Parker, who played his college games at the Arena as a Terrier before coaching there as a visitor for 40 years, was fittingly one half – the BU half – of Saturday’s ceremonial puck drop. On the Northeastern side was David Poile, who captained the Huskies as a star player in 1969-70 before going on to become the winningest general manager in NHL history.
Sometime in 2028, a new arena will open on this site. It will be the new home not just for Northeastern’s men’s and women’s hockey and basketball teams, but for the wider university and Boston community as well. There will be practice space for track and field, soccer, field hockey, baseball and even crew. It will host university and community events.
“At the end of the day, what's going to rise from the rubble of tearing down Matthews is this beautiful structure that the entire university community, not just our administration or our current students and faculty, but our alumni, the city of Boston community is going to be proud of,” Madigan said. “The building is going to be an enhancement to varsity sports, to our club and recreational students, to our faculty, academic celebrations taking place in the building, university events taking place in the building, assisting the city of Boston with their high school graduations. So, I look at this building as it's connecting communities. This building will be able to be able to house seven different activities at the same time, where if you look at Matthews Arena, you can only have one activity in there.”
Matthews had undergone renovations in the last 15 years, including the addition of a state-of-the-art jumbotron. But any more renovations would have just temporarily delayed the inevitable. Structurally, the building had reached the end of its life. The scaffolding on part of the exterior attests to that, as does the fact that one end of the balcony has been blocked off for several years now. Where once The Dog House would have hung over both nets, they were now relegated to one end.
Matthews’ current tenants will be inconvenienced for a couple years. Basketball will move to the nearby, smaller Cabot Center. Things will be more challenging for the hockey teams. After winter break, they will play “home” games at an assortment of local rinks, including BU’s Walter Brown Arena, Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center, Bentley Arena in Waltham, UMass-Lowell’s Tsongas Center, and even one game against Maine up in Portland. The next couple seasons may play out similarly. They may have to play more true road games in general.
But, all of that is the story that is about to begin. Saturday night was all about the story that was ending – and what a story it was.