What's New

Every time the guide is updated, details will appear on this page.


October 24, 2022: I'm back to all 20 after being at 19 for only about 12 days. The Brantford Civic Centre page has been updated following my recent visit; I also updated the Pre-history page now that I've finally gotten into Paris Arena to take a picture.

March 13, 2022: On the way to Quebec this past weekend, I stopped in at the Trenton Community Gardens to see a new former OHL arena I hadn't known about last time I was in the city.

November 27, 2021: I've been teasing it for a while, but today I launched venue profiles for the 23 (!) different former WHL arenas I've been to. They can all be accessed from the index page on this very site.

What this also means, of course, is that I'm officially committing to eventually doing a WHL Arena Guide site. I registered whlarenaguide.com today, though for now it's just parked as a domain name, and over the course of the next few months I'm gradually going to build out the new site, including all the "site of" arenas I've been to as well as all the current rinks I've seen. There are actually only four current WHL arenas I've never been to, if you can believe it (Prince George, Tri-City, Portland, and Winnipeg), and so I should have enough content to launch a proper site soon.

In terms of timing, I launched the OHL site at 9/20 current rinks visited, and I launched the Q site at 8/18, both of which are 45% of the total in the league, so I'm planning to officially launch whlarenaguide.com when I hit 10/22 WHL arenas. It just so happens I'm planning to go to games in Calgary, Lethbridge and Red Deer in mid-January, as well as hitting two more former rinks in Alberta, so I should be good to launch officially by the end of January 2022.

November 5, 2021: The third and final profile from my trip, the Kamloops Blazers, is now up, but stay tuned - more WHL content is coming.

November 3, 2021: The second profile from my trip out west, Victoria's Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, is now online.

October 31, 2021: My WHL arena total is now up to seven, and my former WHL arena total has also increased quite a bit. I've got quite a few updates planned over the next week or so, but to start, here's my profile for the Edmonton Oil Kings.

October 15, 2021: Two bits of news from the WHL, one of which is nearly two years old: the new one is that the Portland Winterhawks have officially stopped venue-sharing with the Trail Blazers and are playing their entire schedule this year at the Coliseum. This means the Moda Center is now listed as a former WHL arena on that page, which now also has Rogers Arena on it, as I learned today that the Canucks' building hosted the Vancouver Giants' teddy bear toss game in December 2019.

September 19, 2021: After a pandemic year where not much happened junior hockey-wise, I should be adding to my WHL total next month. But for now, I was in midtown Toronto yesterday and finally took an exterior photo of Varsity Arena on a beautiful fall day.

December 2, 2020: Back in September, when I went around and took pictures of all the pre-war arenas and sites, I also stopped off at three current buildings to take new shots on a beautiful day. I came home not wanting to overshadow the new research by flooding the site with updates, and promptly forgot about it. So, a few months late, we have the first new exterior pictures of Kitchener and Guelph since 2004, as well as a much better shot of the Meridian Centre showing the full building.

September 20, 2020: Last week's Pre-War Arena update is completed today after my trip yesterday to Niagara Falls and Port Colborne. I also took a new exterior shot of Paris Arena with the light in the right spot.

September 14, 2020: In conjunction with @OHL_History, we have together researched all of the arenas used by the OHL in its previously-unknown prewar period. This is all new historic research that has never previously been published all in one place. Check out the brand new Prehistory of the OHL page for more information! I've also rewritten my other three OHL history sections to reflect some other new information.

September 7, 2020: Would you believe that I've uncovered a new former OHL arena from 56 years ago that no one knew about? Check out the story at Trenton Community Gardens!

June 14, 2020: I've acquired a colour exterior photo of the Hamilton Forum courtesy Doug Smith.

March 28, 2020: With no junior hockey on the horizon for the foreseeable future, I guess this is the last update for this season, eh? I realized I hadn't updated my London interior shot since 2004, so I took a new picture at a game I went to shortly before the season and everything else went to hell. Stay safe and healthy, everyone.

February 14, 2020: WHL game #4 is now in the books, and I've written up a profile for the Vancouver Giants following my recent visit to the Langley Events Centre. I've also added pictures of three new former arenas to the Former WHL Western Conference Arenas page.

January 11, 2020: The Flint profile is updated with new pictures and a slightly modified writeup following my recent visit.

December 14, 2019: I went back to the Kitchener Aud for the first time since the 2008 Memorial Cup, and there is now a new picture and a rewritten profile on that page.

December 8, 2019: The conversion project is done, and all old material is now deleted off my server. Because any migration like this is a challenge, if you notice a 404 error or anything weird in viewing any of the new pages, please let me know.

December 5, 2019: All twelve former OHL arenas where I've seen a game have been converted to the new template, and any and all outdated information has been deleted. For the record, those twelve are London Gardens, Yardmen Arena, Joe Louis Arena, Maple Leaf Gardens, Oshawa Civic Auditorium, Brampton Centre, Kingston Memorial Centre, Compuware Arena, Sault Gardens, Windsor Arena and St. Michael's College Arena. Conversion of the remaining former venue pages is ongoing.

October 18, 2019: That's all 20 current OHL venue profiles now converted to the new template. The only one that has substantially different content other than what's already been mentioned is Ottawa, which has an entirely new writeup. In addition, the WHL East Division page has been updated with pictures from Regina and Saskatoon, so that's everything now online from my trip to Saskatchewan.

October 14, 2019: The last of the three big WHL updates is done, with the Swift Current Broncos now having a profile. In addition, I've converted Flint, Sault Ste. Marie, and Sarnia to the new template so far, with more likely later today. UPDATE: I made it as far as Mississauga, reading from left to right. Twelve current teams down, eight to go, then I'll get started on the Q site before going back to do the former arenas.

October 13, 2019: Updated today: the venue profile for the Moose Jaw Warriors, as well as announcing that the Storm profile has been converted and overhauled, and the Spitfires profile has been converted with minor updates. I also converted the League History, About, and Hall of Fame pages to the new template and ensured they were up-to-date.

October 12, 2019: Big changes afoot at OHL Arena Guide dot com, as for the first time since 2003, the site is getting a major overhaul. When I launched this website, it was intended as a travel guide. There was no place on the internet at that time that had information about directions, parking, ticket prices, etc. for going on the road to OHL games, and because I wanted to read such a website, I figured I may as well make one. I had rudimentary HTML programming knowledge and I could post pictures and writeups so that other fans could have that information.

Today, most of that information is now covered by Google, Wikipedia, and far more comprehensive team sites, and besides, anyone who's been on this website since, oh, 2009 or so is well aware of the fact that a lot of the information posted is hopelessly out of date. Moreover, I have no desire to keep going back over and over again to Kingston or Sault Ste. Marie - I've been there, done that, and I'd rather spend my hard-earned disposable income and vacation time on new experiences.

So today, I re-launch the site. For the first time ever, the main index page has all the 2003 clutter removed, and we're focusing only on the venue profiles past and present. Moreover, I saw my first WHL games this past weekend, so over the next few days we will be posting the Moose Jaw Warriors and Swift Current Broncos.

For today, though, we debut with the Prince Albert Raiders and the London Knights - two green and gold teams near and dear to my heart. Thank you to those who've stuck with me for the past sixteen years, and I hope that by rolling out the new template over the coming weeks, the site will remain current and useful for the next sixteen years and beyond as I someday complete all 60 CHL arenas.

January 7, 2019: I finally went back to Galt Arena Gardens at a time it was open and the lights were on.

November 17, 2018: Last month I went to NHL games in three western Canadian cities and saw a bunch of WHL barns at the same time. The WHL section has been completely revamped, and you can now find six pages of WHL content here: pages for the current WHL BC, US, Central and East Divisions, as well as former buildings from the Eastern and Western Conferences.

March 5, 2018: I went to an AHL game in Belleville this weekend, and given that the sad saga of the Belleville Bulls has something of a happy ending, I've updated the Yardmen Arena page. I also stopped off in Oshawa en route to Belleville and took new pictures of the site of Hambly Arena and the Oshawa Civic Auditorium.

January 24, 2017: I recently went to my first Q game in nine years in Blainville-Boisbriand, so check the Q site for recent updates. The one Ontario update is I finally got a decent outside shot of the Cornwall Civic Complex. Also I've joined Twitter.

October 16, 2016: It may have taken me four years, but I finally made it to North Bay. I'm absolutely thrilled to say I've once again been to all 20 OHL arenas, and now 31 in total past and present.

February 16, 2016: All the way back in late December Mrs OHLAG and I went to a game in Flint, and that page is updated with a new picture and a writeup. Back to 19/20 again...

September 27, 2015: In honour of tonight's lunar eclipse I went and did an update... we went to the first Hamilton Bulldogs OHL game last night and I've updated the guide with a review. I've also made a page for the Flint Firebirds, which is pretty bare-bones for now, but I will definitely be making the trip there this winter. I also made a page (only eleven months late!) for the First Niagara Center, where the Otters and IceDogs played a regular season game last season. And if for some reason you want to know what I sound like, check out the episodes of the OHL Fanboys podcast where I've done a guest spot.

January 1, 2015: The Niagara IceDogs opened a new arena and I went there and I wrote you a thing about it. If anyone's interested, I still haven't been to North Bay, mostly because of a disinclination to go up there to see the Knights on a Thursday night in January. Fingers crossed that the league will schedule the Knights on a weekend in October in 2015-16...





For 2008-14 site updates, click here.

For 2007-08 site updates, click here.

For 2006-07 site updates, click here.

For 2005-06 site updates, click here.

For 2004-05 site updates, click here.

For 2003-04 site updates, click here.

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