At some point in every sports fan's life, there comes a time when one must wave good-bye to the hometown team's old stadium and welcome the new. Understandably, money talks, and the promise of increased seating capacity, ticket revenue and marketing potential rarely falls on deaf corporate ears. In the blink of an eye, that stadium where you first experienced the beautiful sights, sounds and smells of sports fandom is reduced to rubble in favor of a fancy new arena with a retractable roof across the street. For diehard fans, a changing of the sports arena guard often brings out a complex physical and emotional reaction, but the overwhelming feeling is that of indebted nostalgia.
We owe it to ourselves, to the stadium and to the game itself to visit ageless arenas that are on their last legs because they have given millions of fans spanning several decades something special - memories that arguably are more lasting than those of the sports teams themselves. That's why a high school buddy of mine made a last-minute road trip to see one of the final games in old Yankee Stadium, despite being a diehard Cubs fan. That's why I traveled to Mellon Arena - aka "the Igloo" - to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins during Spring Break. And that's why, after comparing my experience in Pittsburgh to that of last Friday's Washington Capitals game at Verizon Center, the game at the Igloo is the one I will remember 50 years from now.
Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. have been the respective industrial and political backbones of the country since their inception. Likewise, Pitt-Georgetown basketball and Steelers-Ravens football always have been fierce sporting rivals, but the rapid rise of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin to the pinnacle of professional hockey has propelled Penguins-Capitals contests to center stage. Ovechkin's domination of individual NHL honors the past few years has done little to lessen D.C.'s dislike for Crosby, especially after the Penguins' Canadian center bested the Capitals on the way to the 2009 Stanley Cup and then scored the overtime game-winner against Team USA for Olympic gold in Vancouver. For all of the two teams' similarities in star power and league success the past few years, however, their home ice situations could not be more different.
Since 1997, the Capitals have played their home games at Verizon Center - formerly MCI Center - near D.C.'s Chinatown neighborhood. Having been to several Caps games myself, I can safely say there is not a better home fan hockey experience in the NHL's entire Eastern Conference - although watching a Chicago Blackhawks game at the United Center takes the cake league-wide.
They have the league's best player in Ovechkin, a roster full of young, talented stars, and a rabid fan base that rivals those of historical hockey towns like Detroit and Montreal. There's only one problem. Even with all of its fancy new bells and whistles, D.C.'s Verizon Center doesn't come close to mirroring the physical and emotional makeup of a city and its people the way Mellon Arena does in Pittsburgh. When more than 18,000 fans 'rock the red' at Caps games, they get plenty of bang for their buck; what they don't get, however, is an arena with memories.
In stark contrast to the Verizon Center, Pittsburgh's venerable Mellon Arena - built back in 1961 - looks and feels as gritty, old-fashioned and unapologetic as the industry that gave the 'Steel City' its nickname. While the Verizon Center lights up Chinatown like a Christmas tree with its dazzling array of bright neon advertising and an equally colorful and modern interior, Mellon Arena looks less like an igloo and more like a faded, dirty and deflated version of Disney's Epcot Center. The Igloo - like Pittsburgh - has not aged well.
Mellon Arena isn't big, bright or brand spanking new, but it has memories in those 17,000 faded seats. Its concrete ramps, lack of luxury seating and retro banners depicting past Penguin legends look far different from the escalators, ad-cluttered walls and cushy exclusivity of press boxes and suites in modern venues like Verizon. Mellon Arena hearkens back to an earlier, simpler and purer era of hockey, when 'Super Mario' Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr ruled the ice and won consecutive Stanley Cups for Pittsburgh in 1991 and 1992 - and when sports arenas just served Cracker Jack instead of 10 flavors of Dippin' Dots ice cream.
And that's the difference. Washington is a young franchise desperately trying to make history by winning its first Stanley Cup and erasing the memories of the team's frustrating last decade of play - a decade that has seen the Caps falter in the first or second round of each of the team's five playoff appearances. Three of those five playoff runs have ended against the Penguins, none more painful than last year, when the Capitals overcame a 3-1 deficit against the New York Rangers to advance to the conference semis against Pittsburgh, only to lose Game 7 of the series 6-2 on home ice.
Washington fans love their hockey at the Verizon Center, and who can blame them? The arena - with its great location, top-notch amenities and state-of-the-art LED scoreboard - is gorgeous and exciting. Furthermore, the downtown D.C. area has made great commercial and residential strides thanks to the Verizon Center and its chief builder and financier, the late Abe Pollin. Finally, that home sellout streak isn't going to end soon with Ovechkin lighting the lamp for the Caps on a nightly basis. NBC hockey analyst Pierre McGuire wasn't lying when he gushed, "Washington's right in the elite in terms of the atmosphere in the building. It's spectacular ... This place is going off."
But while a new-look Washington tries to make hockey history, old-school Penguins fans revel in their team's storied past at Mellon Arena, and one cannot help but be awed by the intimacy, purity and beautiful nostalgia evoked by the NHL's oldest and lowest capacity venue. Mellon Arena does not simply pay homage to the memory of the past glory years - it is Pittsburgh hockey, transcending decades of players and coaches while adding new pages to an already loaded legacy. Though my stay at the Igloo lasted only as long as a 3-2 Penguins win against the Boston Bruins, it was an unforgettable experience that would warm any sports fan's soul. Sadly, Mellon Arena truly is on its last legs. Next year, the Penguins will move across the street to the Consol Energy Center, and the Igloo will be no more. For the nostalgic fans that stretched the Penguins' sellout streak beyond 150 games last week (March 2), Pittsburgh hockey undoubtedly will never be the same again. The new arena will have roomier seats, box suites
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