The Montreal Canadiens call the Bell Centre home. The arena first opened on March 16, 1996 but construction began nearly three years earlier.
Table of Contents
Arena Guide by Ice Hockey Tripper
History
Again this is pretty much the average when it comes to construction of the arenas and it is pretty fast if you really think about it. What makes this arena unique is that it is the largest hockey arena in the entire world. It is also highly ranked as having some of the highest attendance out of all of the Canadian arenas which says a lot due to the high popularity of hockey across the country. Not only is it popular on the country’s scale, but it competes for unique worldwide arena awards as well. It has been towards the top of the “world’s busiest arenas” year after year. In fact it was specifically ranked the fifth busiest arena in the entire world for 2012 based on ticket sales that do not count any sort of sporting events.
What also made the construction of the arena unique is the fact that it began nearly two weeks after the Canadiens just won the Stanley Cup for the twenty fourth time, talk about a prize for winning the Cup. As with the old age of the arena, renovations have been conducted within recent years, in 2015. These renovations were no small talk as they included replacing all of the seats, adding new restaurants, and internet throughout the entire stadium. An interesting fact is that the capacity for hockey is actually larger than that of the capacity for the arena when it is centered around concerts. Usually it is the other way around, but the Bell Centre was centered around hockey first and everything else second. This design has not failed them yet and it is safe to say that it will not be going away anytime soon.