Northeastern Huskies Men's Hockey (Hockey East) @ Matthews Arena (Boston, MA)

A visit to a true sports landmark

*This trip occurred on November 29, 2025, and there's info about two other trips from a few years ago in here as well. Those trips were on October 28, 2023 and February 2, 2024.

Northeastern University is probably best known known for its five-year co-op program (where students spend two semesters working full time). I don't know much else about the school except that I ALMOST went here for college, two of my cousins went there, and that they have their commencement at Fenway Park, as it's relatively close to the school (plus one other connection between the Red Sox and Northeastern which I'll get to in a sec - and I'm not talking about Spring Training).

The Northeastern Huskies...aren't exactly a major player in just about ANY sport (as a member of a non-football conference); the most notable thing about Northeastern sporting wise (outside of what I'm about to discuss) is that the campus contains a marker commemorating the Huntington Avenue Grounds (the original home of the Boston Red Sox and the site of the first World Series game in 1903). In terms of their hockey team, they're probably just above Harvard (thanks to being in Hockey East) and WELL below BC, BU, and the Bruins on the "Boston hockey relevancy scale"¹, as they haven't really done much outside of a single Frozen Four appearance (and a Hobey Baker award winner in 2018 who's been somewhat of an NHL journeyman). This lack of relevancy includes the fact that they have the fewest Beanpot trophies of the tournament's four teams - though they've won the Beanpot five of the last seven years and featured one of the best names in all of sports: Gunnerwolfe Fontaine (who scored in OT to win the Beanpot in 2024). However, since 1946, the Huskies have had the privilege of playing in the oldest indoor arena in the world: Historic Matthews Arena.

Opened in 1910 (two years before the Boston Red Sox left the Huntington Avenue Grounds for Fenway Park) and originally named "Boston Arena", Matthews Arena is a landmark in the history of Boston sports, as it served as the original home of the Boston Bruins and also hosted the first game in Boston Celtics history - and has banners commemorating them (it was also the original home of the now Carolina Hurricanes, but they don’t get a banner)². Northeastern assumed control of the building in 1979, and renamed it after a former chairman of the university (and his wife) in 1982.

Because the ideas of concessions, merchandising, and even the NHL (founded in 1917 officially) weren’t exactly "things" when this place was built, there's basically NO concourse here (which you can kinda see on the interior photo); the entrance lobby on the north side of the building has the building’s concession stands and a merchandise booth. This lobby is also rather ornate by arena standards (again, likely due to the history), as evidenced by the hanging lighting fixtures and CARPETING.

Of the Hockey East arenas I've been to, Matthews is notable for having balcony style upper level seating around the arena as opposed to “upper” and “lower” sections in a single bowl like Providence, BC, and UMass Amherst (though from what I’ve seen of it, Maine has balcony seats too³). The lower level here is "a bit uneven", as the long sides are slightly elevated from the lobby (with the end zone at lobby level for handicapped patrons). Also, there's no true "seating bowl", as the far end has only a premium seating area which is by and large disconnected from the rest of the seats, and the "bowl" is disrupted by the entrance for the ice resurfacers. Some of the upper seats have fairly obstructed views of the ice, but you have a giant, modern jumbotron (built in 2019) to help you out, which feels VERY out of place in a building as old as Matthews.

Back in the 2023-24 college hockey season, I visited Matthews Arena twice; for those who are wondering why I didn't post about it back in October (with the other posts about my 2023-24 hockey trips), there are reasons that I'm sure some readers will understand (and will become clearer soon), but one of the big ones is because I was thinking about going to this game back then. Despite being ten bucks more than an end zone seat in the lower bowl, I opted for a balcony seat, as I wanted to experience the game from here (plus I had an end zone seat for one of the prior games).

I will say that among the games I went to back in the day, the student section aka "The Doghouse"⁴ was probably one of the better student sections I saw among the Hockey East schools (one of their most famous chants calls basically every other school a "safety school"). However, they are seated in the balcony, so they don’t quite have the same presence as their fellow Boston schools. Of course, part of that was the results of the games: Northeastern lost the first game to Merrimack⁵, but won comfortably in their second game against Maine. Despite the fact that there were FAR fewer students at this game due to Thanksgiving (as well as no live band, which the first two games both featured), the "hot, aggressive, and classless" students at this game were still a fun bunch to listen to throughout the game. Part of that was that this game - a non-conference showdown against Brown during Thanksgiving weekend - featured a Northeastern team that somehow, someway, was the highest ranked team in Boston coming in winning comfortably after scoring two goals within their first three shots on goal (Hockey East is WEIRD this year).

One other note: if you're willing to walk a little bit across Northeastern's campus, free parking is provided at one of the university's garages. If not, however, paid options are available closer to the arena (though the garage next to the arena is quite pricey IMO). Also, if the concessions inside aren't your thing (or they're too busy - as they were during this game), there's several food options on nearby Huntington Avenue which, given that they tend to cater to students, are meant to be convenient (and are usually open quite late - especially by Boston standards).

MERCH

As mentioned earlier, there's a merch area in the lobby here, but it's really not that big. Most of the time, it doesn't stray from what you'd expect from a college sports merchandising area (though I should mention that Northeastern does sell hockey jerseys), but one of the games I came to here featured special items for its cancer awareness theme.

This game featured fewer jerseys than I've seen in the past, but several "jersey hoodies" - hoodies that are designed to resemble hockey jerseys. While I did get a hoodie at this game (and a mini hockey-stick), it wasn't one of these "jersey hoodies" - it featured a logo for something a bit different.

If you were ever curious about visiting this place, I have some bad news for you...