XL Center Update

[CL82]

As someone who watched it being built...we students dubbed it the "U condome", for obvious reasons. It's an ungainly design overly focused on some kind of exterior and interior aesthetic at the cost of practicality. It was a mistake. Build a rectangle, include suites and proper concourses. Maybe some windows for natural light. I fear they are making a similar mistake with the undersized hockey arena.

Architects often don’t like to build boxes. Boxes don’t look as compelling on renderings. As it turns out, the dome design was pretty impractical, but, for me at least, I think it’s an attractive and unique looking building.

Regarding the hockey arena, it is frustrating how little bang for the buck in terms of seating capacity we are getting. It does appear that it is readily upgradable, if necessary. You could do seats in the SRO section in seats in the open section, towards the front. When I looked at that design it reminded me of Gampel’s open corners. It is a design that just begs to be filled in at some point in the future. I do think it’s going to be a great place to see a game in the energy should be terrific given that it should regularly be at or near capacity.

 

[superjohn]

As someone who watched it being built...we students dubbed it the "U condome", for obvious reasons. It's an ungainly design overly focused on some kind of exterior and interior aesthetic at the cost of practicality. It was a mistake. Build a rectangle, include suites and proper concourses. Maybe some windows for natural light. I fear they are making a similar mistake with the undersized hockey arena.

Impractical, yes but I think it's one of the best and most unique college basketball arenas in the country.

 

[Platt81]

You realize both the women and the men have already played there.

I’m well aware, Chief, but to throw it out there that 8-10 regular season games could be played there is laughable, but expected, since it’s from you.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Sometimes, something just happens historically and patterns get locked in for no one reason. That might have been the case here. But if you want nothing more than a WAG, UConn, for a number of historical reasons peculiar to the northeast, had less state support for the flagship university then many other states did. And the University was happy to play the Hartford game in the late 70s and early 80s to play games in front of legislators and get more support from downstate. And the University rode this arrangement to a much improved level of statewide support than it traditionally had.

I’m not going to keep going on this. I’ve said my piece and folks can believe it or not and accept it or not. But one last time — the Governor appoints and removes the trustees at UConn and the Governor is the starting point for all state budget funding decisions. The thought that UConn is going to tell him “no” when he wants something is fantasy

Fair enough. And it was somewhat the answer I was expecting. You've mentioned having first hand knowledge of this process and I'll take that at face value.
It wouldn't surprise me if many other states have similar quirks in legislature funding of universities which aren't nearly as visible as athletics.

 

[Waquoit]

Impractical, yes but I think it's one of the best and most unique college basketball arenas in the country.

When I went to the opening game versus St. John's; my first thought was how it reminded me so much of the building that Virginia was moving out of.

 

[Kolumbo]

It was a terrible troll job and you're trying to give it life.

What're you talking about. I like the inside of Gampel for the game atmosphere, it's a great venue to see a game. The design of the building itself is awful. It's not historic like Cameron. It's not modern like new facilities. It has no exterior qualities other than being a round concrete silo.

Liberty U has the Vines Center which was built at the same time as Gampel. For some reason they just built a 4,000 seat Liberty Arena and play basketball there now. The Vines Center used for other events did get a new Devo rooftop!

 

[HuskyHawk]

Impractical, yes but I think it's one of the best and most unique college basketball arenas in the country.

Well it didn't leak on us, so that was a plus. I can't say I've been to many college basketball arenas (dedicated to that purpose). Of the three I've been to often, it's vastly better than the UConn Field House and falls quite a bit short of Allen Field House. That's not saying much since the comparisons go from worst to possibly best.

I think they blew a lot of money on Patoni tiles that could have been used to make it bigger and better. The dome looks cool from the inside. The concrete exterior is ugly. Instead of spending on tiles they could have created an attractive brick building like some of the others. Windows would also be welcome. Werth is next door and is much better looking.

 

[Kolumbo]

Can you find similar examples? Penn State doesn't play in Philly, but the 76ers do. Pitt plays in Pittsburgh. Colorado doesn't play in Denver, but it doesn't need to - the Nuggets do. So a state with no NBA or NHL tenant and a U that is away from the main city. I haven't found another one. Louisville is in the main city and does use the public arena. So is U Washington and it doesn't afaik. Kansas and Nebraska don't have arenas in state (KC would love more KU games, but it's in Missouri). URI doesn't use the dunk, because PC does and is a bigger draw. I briefly though IU fit...and remembered the Pacers.

So I found one. Missouri. Two arenas. One still has NHL, the other (KC) lost its NBA team and has no top tier tenant. They play Illinois at St. Louis (for obvious reasons) but no games in KC. So the T-Mobile center (way nicer than XL) isn't used. KU does play there once a season. T-Mobile Center - Wikipedia

I was thinking of UMass and why it doesn't play in Springfield, but as it turns out, the Mass Mutual Center/Springfield Civic Center is slightly smaller than the Mullins Center.

 

[CL82]

Well it didn't leak on us, so that was a plus. I can't say I've been to many college basketball arenas (dedicated to that purpose). Of the three I've been to often, it's vastly better than the UConn Field House and falls quite a bit short of Allen Field House. That's not saying much since the comparisons go from worst to possibly best.

I think they blew a lot of money on Patoni tiles that could have been used to make it bigger and better. The dome looks cool from the inside. The concrete exterior is ugly. Instead of spending on tiles they could have created an attractive brick building like some of the others. Windows would also be welcome. Werth is next door and is much better looking.

View attachment 73896

Who knows, you may just get your wish when they put the concourse around Gampel.

As some on the board might know from reading between the lines, I wasn’t a huge fan of the move from a white husky to the infamous “blue wolf“ as our mascot/logo. But I will say the new logo and backlit sign that went up on Gampel looks really sharp and makes the building look much more attractive especially when entering at night.

 

[husky429]

Everyone posting in this thread is a dimwit, including myself. Can we at least agree on that?