Boston Garden (TD Garden)

Boston Garden is a sports arena in the North End neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the home arena for the Boston Bruins, an NHL team, and the Boston Celtics, an NBA team. It is site of the annual Beanpot, and hosts the annual Hockey East Championships. The arena has also hosted many major national sporting events including the 1999 and 2003 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball First and Second Rounds and the 2006 Women’s Final Four. In addition, the facility has hosted the 2001 US Figure Skating Championships, the 1996 and 2000 US Gymnastics Trials, the 2004 and 1998 NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Championship (aka the Frozen Four), the 1996 NHL All-Star Game, and the World Wrestling Federation’s WrestleMania XIV in 1998. Like most sports arenas, it also hosts other events, such as concerts, shows, conventions, graduations, seminars, ice shows, circuses, and most notably the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Seating Capacity: – 18,624 (basketball), 17,565 (hockey)
Opened: - September 30, 1995
Owner: - Delaware North Companies
Operator: - Delaware North Companies
Construction cost: - $160 million
Architect: - Ellerbe Becket, Inc.

When constructed to replace the aging Boston Garden as the home of the Boston Bruins hockey team and the Boston Celtics basketball team, the arena was called FleetCenter. The arena opened on September 30, 1995.

During the construction phase, the naming rights to the “New Garden” were sold to a major Boston-based regional bank, the Shawmut Bank. However, just as the Shawmut Center was being completed, Shawmut merged with its somewhat larger rival, the Providence-based Fleet Bank. The merger was negotiated in secret while Shawmut and Fleet’s marketing departments were simultaneously engaged in a spirited bidding war for the arena’s naming rights. The post-merger bank had effectively been bidding against itself. The bank which won the competition for the “New Garden’s” naming rights, Shawmut, was the bank whose name disappeared during the merger. Shortly before the new arena opened, every seat, which had been stamped with the Shawmut logo, had to be replaced. Also, the entire color scheme for the interior had to be adjusted.

The name of the arena was expected to change as a result of the April 1, 2004 merger of FleetBoston Financial Group with Bank of America. On January 5, 2005, Bank of America and FleetCenter’s owner, Delaware North Companies, announced an agreement under which the bank made a payment to be released from the remaining six years on the naming rights agreement. The agreement left Delaware North free to sell the naming rights to another sponsor. On March 3, 2005, Maine-based TD Banknorth, the U.S. subsidiary of Toronto-Dominion Bank, announced its purchase of the naming rights. The first major event after the announcement was the 2005 Hockey East men’s tournament.

The company named the facility “TD Banknorth Garden” in honor of the original Boston Garden. The name officially became the TD Banknorth Garden on July 1, 2005. Prior to that date, it went under the name “YourGarden.”

Just as the Boston Garden was, The TD Banknorth Garden is built on top of Boston’s North Station, a major transportation hub. The Commuter Rail waiting area becomes crowded during events due to this design: the fans share a relatively small area with commuters and several fast food concessions. (There is a concourse on the second floor which is about the same size as the main ground floor concourse, but this is utilized only as an entryway for the arena.) There are current plans under development to enlarge the MBTA’s North Station concourse.

Connections to the Orange Line and Green Line are at the eastern entrance. The Green Line formerly ran on an el in front of the building: however, a Green Line tunnel was completed in 2004. (The original plan was to tear down the el before the 2004 Democratic National Convention, but in the end the tracks were purposely left up through the Convention, to serve as a platform for security forces.)

In 2006, the MBTA announced plans to double the size of North Station’s concourse.

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Boston Garden website
Boston Garden wikipedia entry
Boston Bruins website
Boston Celtics website
Reds Army Fansite
Celtics Blog Fansite

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