The Northeastern Huskies have called Matthews Arena home since 1930. Located in the heart of their campus, the school’s hockey programs have played there forever. But that will now come to an end. The arena hosted its final event on December 13th, a men’s hockey matchup against the Boston University Terriers. For the Huskies, it was a farewell to their beloved home, but the arena’s effects on the game of hockey in Boston were recognized far beyond Northeastern’s campus.
Originally named the Boston Arena, the arena first opened in April of 1910, before burning down due to a fire in 1918 and being rebuilt as an exact replica of the old building. At the time, it was a state-of-the-art facility meant to host hockey, figure skating, curling, boxing, and concerts. But it quickly lost out on many of those events due to the opening of the Boston Garden in 1928, which had a larger capacity. After this, the arena was used mainly for high school and college hockey. The arena was the first home of both the Bruins and Celtics before they moved to the Garden. Throughout its history, the arena hosted many famous figures such as Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, and Theodore Roosevelt.
The rink is filled with many old quirks that aren’t found in modern-day arenas, such as the wooden roof. When it opened, the ice surface was 220 by 90 feet, and the lower bowl of the arena was shaped around this. When the Bruins joined the NHL, the surface was shortened to 200 by 85 feet, which became the NHL standard for their ice surfaces. The long lower bowl remained, leaving a large gap in between the front rows behind the nets and the glass. Throughout its history, the width of the surface mostly stayed at around 90 feet, giving it a reputation as one of the larger rinks in college hockey.
Boston Arena played a pivotal role in growing the game of hockey in the greater Boston area. Along with Northeastern, Boston College, Boston University, and Harvard all called the rink home during the early days of their programs. The first Beanpot was played here, an annual tournament between those four schools. This event is now hosted at TD Garden and draws national attention.
On the high school side, nearly every school in the state with a hockey program played their games at Boston Arena at some point in their history, including Hingham High School. With a rink like Boston Arena, high school hockey was able to flourish in Massachusetts and it became arguably the strongest state in the country for high school hockey. The building was one of the biggest factors in growing Boston’s incredibly strong hockey culture into what it is today.
As more and more rinks were built across Massachusetts due to the growing demand for the sport, the arena slowly started to lose tenants, eventually leaving Northeastern as one of the only team left. Realizing the convenience of the arena’s location, the university decided to buy Boston Arena in 1979, later renaming it to Matthews Arena in honor of the school’s former chairman. Since then, Northeastern’s men’s and women’s hockey programs, along with the basketball program, have been the only full-time tenants at the arena.
Northeastern’s student section, called “The DogHouse” has sat in the balcony sections behind the net since it was founded in 1997. They have become a crucial part of the hockey community, chanting in support of the team, and in opposition to the away team’s goaltender at every home game. Many students follow the team for their away games as well, taking every chance to call opposing goaltenders “sieves.”
The arena underwent major renovations in 2010 as part of an effort to extend the arena’s lifespan. Fortunately for the university and lovers of hockey history, it did, allowing Matthews Arena to remain in use for another 15 years. In its time as the home of the Huskies, the school saw multiple Frozen Four runs from the men’s and women’s teams, as well as its sole winner of the Hobey Baker Award, Adam Gaudette.
Unfortunately, the arena was unable to be preserved forever. In 2023, scaffolding went up on the southwest side of the building, along with cranes that were seemingly holding up part of the wooden roof. That, along with the blocking off of part of the DogHouse, left fans concerned about the stability of the arena. Despite this, no word came from the university until nearly a year later, after rumors of the building’s foundation sinking led to an investigation that revealed concentrations of lead, asbestos, and other toxic chemicals in the soil that held the building’s foundation.
This left Northeastern AD Jim Madigan with a very difficult decision to make. Either replace Matthews or spend a similar amount of money to that of a new arena just on attempting to salvage an old facility that had fallen out of favor. While some enjoyed the old-school style of Matthews, the outdated facilities for the school’s hockey programs left the school unable to recruit high-end talent at the rate of Blue-Blood schools in the area such as BC and BU. Any new facility would help fix that problem.
For Madigan, the decision was fairly easy. Shortly after the investigation concluded, Northeastern announced plans to tear down the old building and replace it with a new, state-of-the-art facility in June of 2024. The school made sure to leave enough room to properly design and plan for the demolition and construction of the new facility, so that by the time Matthews closed, they would be ready to start work immediately with minimal delays.
A proper sendoff would complete the long story of Matthews Arena. Fortunately for fans, Northeastern delivered, dedicating the first half of the 2025-26 season to saying farewell to the beloved building. All of the arena’s tenants wore patches commemorating the arena’s final season, and the school held various ceremonies throughout the year to honor its history. Men’s hockey also switched their throwback uniforms from road red to home white so they could wear them at home more often.
“It’s sad seeing a historical building like that go,” said HHS student Sean Callahan. “It was really cool getting to go see games there, and I’m disappointed that I won’t get an opportunity to see that history again.”
Northeastern’s use of Matthews Arena officially ended on December 13th, in a 4-3 loss to the BU Terriers. The Huskies jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period with goals from freshman forward Jacob Mathieu and junior forward Tyler Fukakusa. The Terriers answered back, tying the game at 2-2 in the second period before the Huskies took the lead back off of a Joe Connor goal with 1.3 seconds left in the second.
The Huskies would hold onto the lead until late in the third period, when Kamil Bednarik found the back of the net to tie the game with just under two minutes remaining in regulation. Brandon Svoboda then scored his second goal of the game 18 seconds later, securing the win for the Terriers.
Despite the heartbreaking loss, the night was far from over for the Huskies, who held an hour-long closing ceremony for the arena that featured Bruins legend Johnny Bucyk along with Northeastern legends from various eras such as David Poile, Art Chisholm, and Jordan Harris.
The ceremony provided an incredibly bittersweet ending to the building’s story, allowing the Northeastern players to take one last lap around the rink before it closed its doors for good.
“It was pretty cool seeing all of those guys on the ice at once,” said HHS student John Walsh, who watched the ceremony. “As a college hockey fan, it was great seeing all of that history get honored one last time.”
The demolition of Matthews Arena gives the Huskies the opportunity to build a brand-new multi-purpose facility that will provide a huge boost to the school’s entire athletic department. In doing this, they will try to preserve as much of the history that came before it as possible. The demolition process has been described as “incredibly surgical,” with many parts of the arena being saved and preserved. The iconic arch will be disassembled and preserved in the new facility, and the school has already set up a website where you can buy seats and bricks from the building. In addition, various other objects from the building will be saved and auctioned off.
Blueprints of the new building have already been released by the university, and while they have received criticism for the exterior design, the interior has been very well-received. Many fans are confident that this project will lead Northeastern into a new era of athletic success, and it will provide much needed upgrades that Matthews Arena was not capable of due to its age.
Matthews Arena is a cathedral of Boston hockey. It changed the sport, and its lasting effects are still felt today. Without it, the city’s hockey culture would have never become what it is today. Its final game hosted was a bittersweet ending that marked the conclusion of an era of memories, but also hope and excitement for what the future holds with the new facility.
