Fare Thee Well Matthews Arena

Photo taken by ECH’s Brendan Locke

I never got to set foot on the steep balcony of the old Boston Garden, where cigarette smoke hung from the roof along with the banners. I never saw the grandeur of the Montreal Forum, nor the short porch in right in old Yankee Stadium. I never heard the roar of a playoff crowd at Joe Lewis Arena in Detroit or the Madhouse on Madison in Chicago.

I did get to sit behind a pole at Matthews Arena.

The oldest one of them all had its final farewell Saturday night. Hosting the BU Terriers in the 115-year-old barn one last time before the Huskies are homeless for the next two seasons. An overcapacity crowd of 4,765 flooded into the building for the sendoff. BU sent a strong contingent of their Dog Pound, many adorned in neon construction gear and hard hats.

Not so subtle.

The day's festivities began with legendary BU coach Jack Parker for the ceremonial puck drop. Parker held a tidy record of 80-47-10 over 40 seasons with the Terriers. An omen perhaps. Parker was joined by Northeastern legend David Poile, the longest tenured general manager in the history of the NHL, and has the record for career hat tricks for the Huskies with 11.

I visited the building during each of the last three games of its life. The prior weekend's series against UMass and the one-off against BU. Instead of getting a media credential for the Sunday matinee against the Minutemen, I asked my dad if he wanted to take one last trip to Matthews. He had spent hours there as a little kid watching his older brother play high school games in the 1960s. Why hours? Former Hockey East commissioner Joe Bertagna explained to Sports Illustrated earlier this week, “Massachusetts high school hockey back then brought four teams in at the same time. So you’d have Arlington against Newton. We’d play our first period, and then two other schools would play their first period,” Bertagna explains. “Then we’d play our second period, and then they’d make ice. And then the other team would come out for their second, our third, and then their third. And that format, which I don't know anybody else that's ever done it, carried on all the way into the Boston Garden when you had the state semifinals. You’d have the two semifinal games that would intertwine.”

Six, eight-hour days in Matthews added up over the years, “they used to chain off the balcony,” my dad told me as we shuffled through the packed concourse that Sunday, “But we were so small that we could squeeze under the fence and we would run around up there for hours. There used to be rats the size of small dogs up there.”

Sure dad.

But alas, my father was correct, “rats were an issue,” former equipment manager Erik Bruguiere explained. Affectionately known as “Bones” Bruguiere was sharpening skates in Matthews from 2000 to 2005.

The solution was a cat.

“There was always this cat running around, I don’t remember its name. But the thing had free run of the place,” said Shelly Looney, who played on the Northeastern women’s team from 1990 to 1994. Looney was captain her senior year and totaled 127 career points by the time she hung it up for the Huskies. She would go on to play in two Olympics and nine world championships representing the United States.

Everybody we spoke to who was around in the early 2000s or prior spoke about the cats.

Mocha the cat was the resident pest control in Matthews. “When I got there, I would see this cat running around,” Bones said. “I asked the Zamboni guys, they said yeah, that’s Mocha, she handles the vermin. She was like 20 years old… then she just disappeared one day.”

Only at Matthews.

The first period of the game was met with no whistles in the first eight minutes of the game, a pressure cooker atmosphere turned up to 11 with each student section trading jabs that bounced off the old wood roof of the building, growing louder with each passing second. Northeastern’s Dog House, perched above BU goalie Mikhail Yegorov in the upper deck, got reinforcements from a strong group of former section leaders donning jerseys ranging from 2000 to 2018. They reintroduced some long-lost, off-color (to some) chants that the school had once banned in a previous life. No matter, in its 115 years, Matthews had undoubtedly heard worse.

It’s sort of odd to have a relationship with a building, in any sport. You go to a game, and you leave, probably not seeing much beyond the concourse and the playing field or ice. In college hockey, an undergrad stands in the student section, chants sieve, cheers and boos and goes on their way. But after those four years, something magical happens. You remember the people more than the games, the person who sat next to you for every game. Northeastern athletic director, former coach, and player Jim Madigian reminded the crowd of that in the 30 minute ceremony after the game “this building cannot love you, the people however, did… it’s where everyone knows your name, it was ‘Cheers’ before Cheers was Cheers” a teary eyed Madigan said while getting serenaded by the familiar chant of “Mad-Dog! Mad-Dog!” by the old guard abutting the current Dog House.

The pressure cooker's lid blew off when Northeastern’s Jacob Mathieu tipped a puck past Yegorov on the power play off a feed from Giacomo Martino. It was not just a game Northeastern needed to win; it was a game they could not afford to lose. They appeared poised for the moment, doubling their lead three minutes later off a laser of a shot from Tyler Fukakusa. The night suddenly felt like a dream, and like someone had written a storybook ending for the Huskies to pull away and send the old building off in style. It was short-lived. BU’s Brandon Svoboda would cut the lead in half just moments later, taking a baseball swing at a bouncing puck past Northeastern goalie Lawton Zacher. With 40 minutes remaining in Matthews' lifetime, Northeastern held a narrow 2-1 lead.

Everybody has a first impression when they walk into Matthews Arena for the first time. For Nikki Petrich, it was 2003, and on a recruiting trip from Shattuck St. Mary’s in Minnesota, “just walking into the place, I was like, oh my god, this is the coolest place I’ve ever seen.” Petrich would go on to captain the Huskies her senior year, “seeing the fanbase grow, the student section really started coming my senior year. Then Dave [Flint] took over, and it was off to the races from there.” The Dog House is the introduction to Matthews for so many people, from the Game of Thrones theme after the first whistle to Stacy’s Mom at the final media timeout. TNT and New York Rangers radio broadcaster Alex Faust went to his very first game as a freshman and was blown away. “It was against North Dakota; they had played BC or BU the previous night, I got my first taste of what the Dog House sounded like, and I was hooked from day one.” Faust said, “The atmosphere and the energy of the building it just grabbed me.” Matthews does have a sort of magnetic pull to it, the draw is beyond what is happening on the ice. Matt Filipe played for the Huskies from 2016 to 2020, and his father played at Northeastern when the rink was still oval-shaped in the 1980s. Walking into the concourse looks like a movie theatre from a bygone era. “I walk in there now, I get chills, going as a fan has really changed the way I look at the place… It’s really something you don’t appreciate until you're on the other side of it.” The press box practically hangs over the ice, where if a non-suspecting media member looks at their phone too long during warmups, a flying puck may catapult their way.

The crowd had significantly tuned down after the Svaboda goal in the first. A BU team that has struggled to find any sort of consistency this season settled in and took control over much of the second period. The electrifying Cole Hutson fired three shots on net that period, but it was the transfer from North Dakota, Sacha Boisvert, who tied the game up, scoring his first goal for the Terriers since hosting Long Island on October 4th. Matle Vass dragged multiple defenders with him, streaking in from the circle, and slid it to a wide-open Boisvert, who finally got on the board for the Terriers. BU would tighten the vice from there, narrowly missing on a power play in the late stages of the period, but Northeastern would survive. It appeared that we would be set to see a tie game into the third period, but Joe Connor, the resident home run hitter on Northeastern, would have the moment of a lifetime. Dylan Hryckowian jarred the puck loose in the BU defensive zone with under ten seconds to go in the second period. Connor corralled the loose puck, walked in on Yegorov, and shelved a backhander with 1.3 seconds to go in the period. It was the loudest cheer of the night as the Huskies walked off the ice. With 20 minutes remaining in Matthews' lifetime, Northeastern held a 3-2 lead.

College hockey is changing, with an influx of Canadian talent, and everybody looks for the latest and greatest new feature for their rink. Features that Matthews does not have, and it started to look tired towards the end of its lifespan. One can imagine how difficult it may be to sell an 18-year-old from Saskatoon that Johnny Cash, the Doors, and Phish played there, or FDR has walked through those same doors. Opposed to whichever the latest and greatest innovation is, “we had a place to skate whenever we wanted,” said Filipe. “We weren’t like, oh, we need a high elevation bike or something like that… It's changed in the last 5-10 years for sure.” Michael Jamieson played for the Huskies for four seasons graduating in 2017 and returned as the Director of Hockey Operations, which he served in from 2021 to 2024 “I love it, I think unfortunately some of the newer generation, they just want the shiny and the new” mentioned Jamieson, “at the end of the day they want a new shooting room or weight room.” The sentiment had changed especially recently, but college hockey in New England is still hyper-localized and tribalized at its core, “you and I were local kids, the local guys get it,” Filipe said. The building is odd, with its narrow hallways and small locker rooms, “we could reach out practically touch the wall opposite us,” Shelly Looney said, laughing. “In the 90s, there was not much, and it [locker room] was just an empty room with chairs.”

The first ten minutes of the third period flew by without much action. Northeastern fans gazed up at the oversized scoreboard, trying to will it down to triple zeros. Joe Connor already had a highlight reel moment this game, but he had the opportunity to top it. Sprung loose from the defensive zone with under ten minutes remaining in the game, he could punch the final moment in Matthews’ history on a breakaway. But he was brought down from behind before he could get the shot off; it would be a penalty shot.

Connor would sky his attempt on the penalty shot over the crossbar and off the back glass. Keeping the lead at one.

Before we knew it, the final media timeout hit. The Northeastern played “Stacy’s Mom” for the final time. The 2003 hit from Fountains of Wayne is the unofficial school anthem. 4,000 plus people belted out the song. Everything felt right for the Huskies; it was the dream night summed up in a 2-minute commercial break.

But the game was not over yet, 15 seconds after play resumed with an empty net in the BU end, Kamile Bednarik pounced on a rebound to make it 3-3 with two minutes left in the game.

The nightmare was just beginning for Northeastern.

Just 15 seconds later, on the next shot on net, Brandon Svoboda lunged and, while in mid air, got enough on a puck that snuck behind Northeastern defensemen Dylan Finlay. While falling, Svaboda beat Lawton Zacher, and BU led for the first time all game. Northeastern would try to answer by pulling Zacher and launched an all-out attack in the dying moments, but it would not be enough. With no time remaining in Matthew's life, Northeastern fell short.

It went from a celebration of life to a funeral in a matter of moments.

But as was written about a different Boston legend 65 years ago…

Gods don’t write letters.

The ceremony at the end was a la Montreal Canadians, Madigan’s idea “I think the Canadians do things pretty well, and if you ever google Farewell to the Forum we took some notes on that” Madigan and company brought back a representative from each decade of the buildings existence, Johnny “Chief” Bucyk represented the Bruins of the 1920s, and each generation passed a torch on to next. Culminating in current Bruin Jordan Harris passing it to current captain Vinny Borgesi. The team took a lap with Borgesi leading them, displaying the torch to a standing ovation of folks who never moved from their seat.

This building will be gone, but the memories will remain. People were emotional and reminiscing.

“I got 100 stories about playing hockey at Northeastern, but all of them revolve around the people,” said former assistant captain Brian Tudrick, who graduated in 2004. Jamieson had a similar answer, “I think of Jake Netti, who was the long-time Zamboni guy… I actually had a job with him, most of us did. Guys who are there every day, five in the morning to midnight. Making sure that we had everything we needed because they loved it as much as we did.”

Tudrick shared a newfound memory when he returned nearly 20 years after he graduated “one of my best memories of Matthews was an alumni skate that they did and I got to bring my son, who was 10 at the time” he would go on to send me pictures from that day, with his young son standing in front of the Zamboni doors looking up at the wood panel ceiling. Bones sent pictures of his last visit earlier this season, crouching over at center ice, kissing the Husky logo.

Filipe’s senior season was cut short by the COVID pandemic. “We got the word that we were going to be kicked off campus, and they were sending everyone home.” As the world came crashing to a halt, Filipe and his teammates took one more moment to soak it all in. “We got in there after hours, and we were just sitting on the ice. We were just sitting there in the pitch black, there wasn’t anybody else besides our group in there. That was kind of my last moment as a player there.”

Mentions of Punters pub and Conor Larkin’s dotted every conversation, establishments that closed long ago yet still live on.

As will Matthews.

The hockey community is small, people know each other, especially in Boston. Those who knew Matthews loved it. Those who didn’t love it?  Well, they just didn’t know it well enough

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