The New Jersey Devils have one of the newer arenas in the NHL compared to the teams in the rest of the league. It first began construction in 2005 and was finished only two years later in October of 2007.
Table of Contents
Arena Guide by Ice Hockey Tripper
History
The arena was built based on constant rumors that said the team would relocate if a new stadium had not been built. These rumors persisted from 1995 even up to 2003, but funding began for the new arena in 2002. At the time they were one of the best NHL teams in the league, but their arena certainly did not show it and they did not get much love from the fans for it either. Regardless, a 7 acre site of land was purchased for their new arena and it was both designed and built in 2005. However there were some major issues during the process when there was a lack of funding until the team themselves committed one hundred million dollars of funding to the arena right before the deadline. Even after this financial problem was solved, issues persisted when the new mayor came into office and considered backing out of the original deal. However eventually he just gave up and admitted that it would be built whether he liked it or not, and the Devils helped donate money to his office to keep him happy. What also makes this arena unique is the fact that no taxpayer money was used directly from the city to help pay for the new arena. A majority of the financial burden did come from the franchise itself, which still does not make sense to us especially after all of the rumors that said they would be moving out of the city sooner rather than later. This only makes the history of the arena even more unique.