BOSTON --While the Boston Bruins held their morning skate at TD Garden, preparing to play the St. Louis Blues in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS), their original home sat silent.
About 2 ½ miles southwest, on St. Botolph Street off Massachusetts Avenue, stands Matthews Arena. It is now home to the Northeastern University men's and women's hockey and men's basketball teams, but it used to be called Boston Arena and was home to the Bruins from 1924, when they entered the NHL, until 1928, when they moved into Boston Garden.
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Built in 1910 and renovated multiple times, Matthews Arena is the world's oldest multi-purpose athletic building and houses the world's oldest artificial ice sheet according to Northeastern University, which bought it in 1979.
The Montreal Wanderers and Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey Association played two games here in March 1911, 6 ½ years before the NHL was born. The Bruins, the first NHL team based in the United States, played their first game here Dec. 1, 1924, defeating the Montreal Maroons 2-1. The Carolina Hurricanes can trace their origins to this place too. The New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association played some of their first games here in 1972-73.
