It’s a big week in Boston, as the city is about to bid farewell to one of the most historic sports buildings in North America: Matthews Arena. Opened on April 16, 1910, and recognized as the oldest hockey and basketball venue in the NCAA as well as the oldest multipurpose athletic facility in the world, the venue will host its final event when Northeastern University faces Boston University in men’s hockey on Saturday. After 115 years of continuous use, the arena will shut down to make way for a new complex scheduled to open in September 2028, with demolition beginning in early 2026.
Originally launched as the Boston Arena, the building predates Fenway Park, both Boston Gardens, the NHL, the NBA, and even the Bruins and Celtics themselves. The arena became Boston’s first indoor ice rink. Before its construction, hockey in the city was strictly outdoors. The minute hockey went indoors, interest blew up, contributing to Massachusetts ultimately producing 229 NHL players, the second-most of any U.S. state.
The arena served as the original home of the Boston Bruins, who became the NHL’s first American franchise in 1924 and played there until 1928. It also housed the first home game in Boston Celtics history in 1946, with the team splitting time between the Arena and the Garden until 1955. In 1972, the WHA’s New England Whalers, now the Carolina Hurricanes, also began their franchise history on the same sheet of ice.
In addition to sports, the arena has been a central cultural hub in Boston. Its stages and floors hosted appearances by both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, along with Taft, Hoover, Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy. Not only that, musicians ranging from Bob Dylan and Marvin Gaye to The Doors, Johnny Cash, Phish, and Ludacris performed within its walls. It was also the site where Nancy Kerrigan returned after her 1994 attack, and where more than 12,000 mourners attended the funeral of Reggie Lewis.
Northeastern made the arena its hockey home in 1929, purchased the building in 1979, and renamed it Matthews Arena three years later. Since then, it has housed Northeastern’s men’s and women’s varsity hockey teams, men’s basketball program, club hockey groups, figure skating teams, university gatherings, and the city’s first Beanpot Tournament in 1952.
Northeastern’s hockey identity grew with the arena. The men’s team has produced 34 NHL players, while the women’s program won six straight Hockey East titles (2018–23) and reached three consecutive Frozen Fours (2021–23). The famous DogHouse student section became one of the loudest and most recognizable fan groups in college hockey.
Age, however, finally caught up with the structure. By 2024, the building’s condition required large exterior steel supports, upper-deck closures, and scaffolding to keep it operational. Its narrow lobby, wooden-plank ceiling, tight corridors, and maze-like balcony tell you the arena is long past modern standards.
The farewell to the arena has been a drawn-out process, stretching from the 2024 demolition request to the final basketball game last month and Monday’s last community skate, and it reaches its climax this weekend. After Saturday night’s final puck drop, Northeastern’s teams will begin two years of temporary relocation across rinks throughout Massachusetts and Maine.
Once demolition concludes in mid-2026, Matthews Arena will be gone after more than a century, but its influence on Boston sports, American hockey culture, and Northeastern University will remain forever.
