The OHL Arena Guide - Sudbury Community Arena, Sudbury Wolves

First Visit: February 1, 2004
CHL Arena: 16
OHL Arena: 16

Even if you've never been to Sudbury, you've surely heard the stories. That it's a pair of mines with a city attached. That the place's landscape looks so lunar that NASA sent astronauts there to train in the 1970's. That it forever would be a place known for Stompin' Tom Connors's paean about bingo halls and miners getting loaded. For myself, the only thing I knew about the city growing up was that my Dad was transferred up there one winter in the early 1970's and lasted three weeks before giving up, quitting his job and moving home again. I myself passed through Sudbury on the train in 2002 and 2003 and saw the denuded moonscape, but in true Sudbury fashion, the train goes near town but not actually to it. So, making the trip for the first time in February 2004, I thought I knew what to expect from the city and the arena. But what I found surprised me. There's no getting around it - Sudbury isn't Paris. But the stories are mostly exaggerated, and Sudbury Arena is easily the best and last unrenovated old arena in the OHL, with Art Deco touches everywhere and some of the league's best fans. The crowd noise and the old-school feelings alone makes Sudbury well worth the long trip.

Sudbury Community Arena is located in downtown Sudbury, across the street from the VIA train station. From a distance it has that unmistakable "hockey arena" profile, with a high, triangular roof. The building is constructed of brown brick and still has a little bit of leftover Art Deco artifice about it. The exterior of the Sudbury Arena is a candidate for one of my favourites in the OHL. Everything from the lettering to the brickwork is beautiful in its own way - the second most beautiful thing in Sudbury after the Big Nickel.

Sudbury Arena also has one of the best main entrances in the OHL. It has large windows over the doors and a plaque at the front explaining that the building was constructed "to the welfare of humanity." Once entering the main part of the building you're in a beautiful unrenovated lobby painted in dark green and tan, with terrazzo floors and aluminum doors. Even if the arena is someday demolished, the lobby should be saved. You walk up the stairs through the lobby and you enter into the main arena.

The first sight of the inside of Sudbury Arena is impressive. Everything in the building is painted Wolves' blue, and it has the feeling of a grand old hockey palace, bigger than most of its day. The seats are a tasteful dark blue and all the walls are a sky blue colour. The ceiling is very high and made of wood on steel trusses. There are banners hanging honouring the Wolves' retired numbers as well as the Sudbury Wolves of 1932, the last time a Sudbury team won the Memorial Cup.

When I was first in Sudbury I got to hear the old arena announcer, Berk Keaney Sr., who was one of the last of the old-school gentlemen in the Paul Morris mould calling hockey games. Keaney retired in 2011 and died in 2012 at the age of 90, but it was an absolute pleasure getting to experience him calling a game over the PA. The rest of the building continues in the same old-timey vein. The concourse underneath the seats is narrow and crowded, and the Zamboni actually dumps its snow payload in the middle of the back hallway of the building. Catwalks and corridors are everywhere - the rink's layout is by far the OHL's most intricate and unusual, but not in a bad way. It's still easy to get around the arena, but it's the sort of place that you could spend an hour exploring and still not see all of. There is a team store which is among the league's smallest, just barely wide enough to fit a few people in, and with the ceiling so low that you could bump your head if you're not careful. The Wolves have the same gear on sale as everyone else, although theirs is much cooler, because in my opinion they have one of the best logos and uniforms in the OHL. Washrooms are pretty good considering their age.

The seats are all comfortable and there really aren't many bad ones. Don't be tricked into buying standing room, though - there are still fat iron support columns holding up the roof, and if you're in standing room you're almost guaranteed to be looking out from behind a pillar. Team benches are located partially in the attacking zone and the glass is low, so it must be hard to clear the puck along the glass in Sudbury.

The atmosphere in Sudbury is pretty good overall, and the building gets pretty loud like most old buildings. Security used to be non-existent, and I've heard that for some rivalry games the lack of security made the Arena a difficult place to visit, but as with so much of North American sports culture, that's been lost in the 21st century's corporatization of sports. I am absolutely not romanticizing people fighting in the stands at hockey games, but the atmosphere has been lost on some levels too.

The best moment of a Wolves game happens when the Wolves score. An actual stuffed white wolf - not a replica but a real one from the taxidermist's shop - is suspended from the ceiling on a cable. When the Wolves score, the Wolf is ran along the cable over the ice! A flying, stuffed wolf soaring over the ice can't help but make you smile. It's the strangest sight I've seen on my travels so far, and it definitely fits the building and the team and the city perfectly.

Overall, the Sudbury Arena is a good building but a worn-out one. It was built the same year as the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, but the Aud has been renovated over and over again and sparkles, while the Sudbury Arena looks tired in places. Despite the addition of a suite level and a video board in 2008, Sudbury Arena isn't long for this world, with a new building set to open across the street within the next couple of years. I'd prefer Sudbury Arena to be overhauled and renovated rather than replaced, but as with so many other things in this world, no one asked for my opinion. If you'd like to see the last truly old-school, unrenovated rink remaining in the OHL, you've got a couple seasons left before it's gone forever. If you haven't been, don't miss out.

And finally, if you've ever seen the television programme Shoresy, Sudbury Arena is where it's filmed.