XL Center

Hartford Civic Center
Veterans Memorial Coliseum

The Mall
Location	One Civic Center Plaza Hartford, Connecticut 06103
Owner	Madison Square Garden Connecticut
Operator	Madison Square Garden Connecticut
Capacity	Basketball 16,294 Hockey 15,635
Construction
Broke ground	1978
Opened	January 17, 1980
Tenants
UConn Huskies NCAA 1980-Present Hartford Wolf Pack AHL 1997-Present Hartford Whalers NHL 1980-1997 New England Blizzard ABL 1996-1998 Connecticut Coyotes Arena Football League 1995-1996 New England Sea Wolves Arena Footbal League 1999-2000 Boston Celtics NBA 1975-1995 New England Whalers WHA 1975-1978

The Hartford Civic Center is a sports and convention complex located in Hartford, Connecticut owned and operated by Madison Square Garden Connecticut. The arena is ranked the 27th largest among college basketball arenas. Originally located adjacent to a shopping mall (Civic Center Mall, which was demolished in 2004), it was originally built in 1975 and consists of two facilities: the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the Exhibition Center.

The Veterans Memorial Coliseum

The Coliseum is the full-time home of the Hartford Wolf Pack AHL hockey team and part-time home of the University of Connecticut men's and women's basketball teams. It was the home of the New England Sea Wolves of the Arena Football League. It was also the home of the Hartford Whalers of the NHL from 1979-1997 and the New England Blizzard of the ABL from 1996-1998, and hosted occasional Boston Celtics home games from 1975-1995. The arena seats 15,635 for ice hockey and 16,294 for basketball, 16,606 for center-stage concerts, 16,282 for end-stage concerts, and 8,239 for 3/4-end stage concerts, and contains 46 luxury suites and a 310-seat Coliseum Club, plus 25,000 square feet of arena floor space, enabling it to be used for trade shows and conventions in addition to concerts, circuses, ice shows, sporting events and other events.

The first arena on the site was completed in 1975, and was home to the New England Whalers of the WHA for three years. The roof collapsed during a heavy snowstorm in the early morning of January 18, 1978, causing serious damage to the seating bowl area. The building was heavily renovated and re-opened January 17, 1980. In recent years, the arena has been upgraded with a new center-hung scoreboard with four Sony Jumbotrons and a state-of-the-art sound system. The WWE WrestleMania XI was held here, as were Survivor Series 1990, WWE No Way Out 2000 and WWE Vengeance 2004. The 1982 Big East Conference and 1988-1990 America East Conference men's basketball tournaments were also here. The Big East Conference women's basketball tournament is contracted to the coliseum through 2009, and it has hosted multiple NCAA women's basketball sub-regionals and regionals.

Retired Numbers

Though the Hartford Whalers moved to North Carolina in 1997 to become the Carolina Hurricanes, the Coliseum still honors the numbers of six former Whalers with jersey retirement banners, as well as one member of the current tenant Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL.

• 2 Rick Ley, D, 1972-81
• 5 Ulf Samuelsson, D, 1984-91
• 9 Gordie Howe, RW, 1977-80
• 10 Ron Francis, C, 1981-91
• 11 Kevin Dineen, LW, 1984-91, 1995-97
• 12 Ken Gernander, C (Hartford Wolf Pack), 1997-2005
• 19 John McKenzie, RW, 1977-79

The Whalers franchise retired the numbers of Ley, Howe and McKenzie before its move; Samuelsson, Francis and Dineen's numbers were raised in a 6 January 2006 ceremony before a Hartford Wolf Pack game. None of the Whalers number retirements are honored by the Wolf Pack; they only honor their own Ken Gernander's number 12, raised on 8 October 2005 to commemorate the club's only captain since its move to Hartford.

Exhibition Center

The Exhibition Center consists of a 68,855-square-foot exhibit hall, a 16,080-square foot assembly hall that can divide into two meeting rooms, plus seven meeting rooms totaling 7,390 square feet and two lobbies totaling 6,100 square feet. It is used for trade shows, conventions, banquets, meetings and other events.

The surrounding shopping mall was torn down in 2004 and is being replaced by street-level retail shops and a 36 story residential tower set to open in 2006.

External links

• Hartford Civic Center
• Description of roof construction and causes of collapse