Misplaced Pages

#890109

34-525: The arena opened in 1995 as the Iceoplex at Southpointe, with Pittsburgh Penguins owner Howard Baldwin as one of the leaders in the project. Upon its opening, American Figure Skating Champion Suzy Semanick worked as a skating instructor and David Hanson was as general manager. In 2000, former Pittsburgh Steelers Robin Cole led a group of investors who attempted to purchase the Iceoplex to turn it into

68-620: A stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about an ice hockey arena is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Howard Baldwin Howard Lapsley Baldwin (born May 14, 1942) is an American entrepreneur and film producer. Baldwin founded the New England Whalers ice hockey franchise in the World Hockey Association (WHA) and retained ownership when

102-469: A 16,080-square-foot (1,494 m ) assembly hall that can divide into two meeting rooms, plus seven meeting rooms totaling 7,390 square feet (687 m ) and two lobbies totaling 6,100 square feet (570 m ). It is used for trade shows, conventions, banquets, meetings and other events. The surrounding shopping mall was demolished in 2004 and was replaced by street-level retail shops and a 36-story residential tower named Hartford 21 which opened in 2006 and

136-487: A 310-seat Coliseum Club, plus 25,000 square feet (2,300 m ) of arena floor space, enabling it to be used for trade shows and conventions in addition to concerts, circuses, ice shows, sporting events and other events. The graduation ceremonies of Central Connecticut State University and other local colleges are also held annually at the XL Center. As originally built in 1975, it seated 10,507 for hockey, and served as

170-417: A community center. In 2011, the owners, Southpointe Rink Associates, placed the facility for sale, asking $ 11 million. The facility employs about 15 full-time people and up to 50 total during peak season. The building is also used for many youth/adult and recreational programs such as ice hockey, figure skating, baseball, softball, lacrosse, roller hockey, indoor soccer, volleyball, and basketball as well as

204-409: A new HD video board, as well as aesthetic improvements such as a new bar area inside the arena and luxury seating in the lower bowl. A portion of the $ 35 million allocation went towards a study on the arena's long-term viability; either more major renovations or replacing it with a new facility. The XL Center has held many notable events including: The XL Center serves as the second home for

238-674: A new downtown arena for the Whalers with then-governor John G. Rowland , on March 25, 1997, Karmanos announced that the team would leave. The New York Rangers franchise, looking to capitalize on Hartford as a potential market, placed its farm team there to become the Hartford Wolf Pack, starting in 1997. After a short stint as the Connecticut Whale , they reverted to the Wolf Pack moniker in 2013. In September 2010,

272-819: A rink...built at Rentschler Field , the University of Connecticut's football stadium in East Hartford ". Baldwin created the San Jose Sharks as an expansion team, later taking a controlling interest in the Minnesota North Stars , and before later purchasing the Pittsburgh Penguins , all of which are NHL ice hockey teams. At one time, he held a 50% interest in the Moscow Red Army team . He became involved with

306-790: A six-year agreement. The arena is ranked the 28th largest among college basketball arenas. It opened in 1975 as the Hartford Civic Center and was originally located adjacent to Civic Center Mall , which was demolished in 2004. It consists of two facilities: the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the Exhibition Center. On March 21, 2007, the CRDA selected the Northland/ Anschutz Entertainment Group proposal to operate

340-609: A summer activities camp program. The arena is also joined with a health club called the Southpointe Fitness Center, and the restaurant Bubbas Burghers. The building also hosts a successful adult hockey league containing approximately 50 teams during any session playing every night of the week. In addition to recreational sports, the arena also has a corporate meeting room, party rooms and has started renting their recreational/dry arena for trade show/ large event use. The Penguins new purpose-built practice facility,

374-574: A waiver for the project since the expectation is for the Huskies' men's hockey program to continue to play some of its games at the XL Center in Hartford. The target construction date is April 2021 with substantial completion wanted by October 2022. If everything stays on track, the arena would open in December 2022. The Exhibition Center consists of a 68,855-square-foot (6,397 m ) exhibit hall,

SECTION 10

#1732797342891

408-650: The Hartford Wolf Pack . As part of the marketing agreement, the minor league team was renamed the Connecticut Whale , as a tribute to the former Hartford Whalers team. Baldwin licensed the name Connecticut Whale to a franchise of the Premier Hockey Federation , a founding member of the 2015 upstart league. In the early 2010s Baldwin organized the "Whalers Hockey Fest", an outdoor ice hockey festival which featured "up to 20 minor league, college, high school, and youth hockey games at

442-962: The American Hockey League , a player development league affiliated with the NHL, forming the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in Pennsylvania, and Manchester Monarchs in New Hampshire. Baldwin was a founding investor in the World Football League and was to own a franchise in Boston, Massachusetts , but pulled out of the league before its inaugural 1974 season began. Baldwin's specialty was buying franchises with very little of his own money invested. For example, his actual cash investment in

476-530: The Hartford Civic Center ) is a multi-purpose arena and convention center located in downtown Hartford, Connecticut . Owned by the City of Hartford, it is managed by the quasi-public Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) under a lease with the city and operated by Spectra . In December 2007, the center was renamed when the arena's naming rights were sold to XL Group insurance company in

510-655: The UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex , opened in Cranberry Township north of Pittsburgh in August 2015. The Iceoplex at Southpointe was purchased by Piney Ice Holdings Management company in January 2017. As of late 2017, Printscape printing company owns the naming rights for the facility and was renamed Printscape Arena at Southpointe. This article about a sports venue in Pennsylvania is

544-607: The World Hockey Association Hall of Fame in the builders category. In addition to his interest in professional hockey, Baldwin has also pursued a career in film as a producer with his wife and producing partner, Karen Mulvihill Baldwin. The Baldwins produced such films as Mystery, Alaska , Odd Man Rush , Sudden Death , From the Hip , Spellbinder , and Joshua , among others. Hartford Civic Center The XL Center (originally known as

578-690: The Hartford Civic Center: the shot from behind the backboard. It was the home of the Connecticut Coyotes and later the New England Sea Wolves of the Arena Football League . The arena seats 15,635 for ice hockey and 16,294 for basketball , 16,606 for center-stage concerts , 16,282 for end-stage concerts, and 8,239 for 3 ⁄ 4 -end stage concerts, and contains 46 luxury suites and

612-554: The NHL's Boston Bruins . He moved the Whalers from Boston to Hartford's new Civic Center Coliseum , a vehicle for the revitalization of downtown Hartford, with the team playing their first game there in 1975. In 1979 Baldwin guided the WHA into a historic merger with the NHL with his New England Whalers making the transition to the more established league after their identity was changed to the Hartford Whalers. Baldwin served as

646-806: The Penguins was just $ 1,000. The rest was assumed debt and capital provided by other partners. His purchase of the Penguins was bankrolled largely by Morris Belzberg. Baldwin served as the Penguins chairman of the board and represented the club on the NHL Board of Governors. Under his direction the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in the 1992 , one Patrick Division regular season title, four Northeast Division titles, and one President's Trophy. Baldwin and his partners created The American Hockey League expansion franchise in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1999 as

680-685: The University of Connecticut's men's and women's basketball programs. At the start of the 2014–15 season the UConn men's ice hockey program moved to the XL Center as a condition of its joining Hockey East. In September 2018, the UConn Board of Trustees approved a plan to build a new 2,500-seat arena with 500 seat-backs in Storrs with the option to expand to 3,500 seats if necessary. Though Hockey East requires arenas to hold at least 4,000, UConn received

714-499: The WHA's New England Whalers/NHL's Hartford Whalers, then with the Hartford Wolf Pack /Connecticut Whale of the American Hockey League (AHL), and finally with the Connecticut Whale of the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). Baldwin became one of the youngest executives in professional sports when he became a founder and partner of the WHA's Boston-based New England Whalers in 1971 at the age of 28. Five years later he

SECTION 20

#1732797342891

748-499: The arena complex; Northland also developed the Hartford 21 residential tower on the adjacent Civic Center Mall site. The agreement also stated that Northland would assume total responsibility for the building bearing the cost of any and all losses, and would retain any profits. In 2012, the CRDA put the contract out to bid with hopes of combining the operations with Rentschler Field . In February 2013, Global Spectrum of Philadelphia

782-530: The arena was upgraded with a new center-hung scoreboard with four Sony Jumbotrons and a state-of-the-art sound system. The Connecticut State Legislature set aside $ 35 million in funding for improvements to the XL Center that began in early spring 2014 and completed in time for the start of the 2014–15 seasons of the Wolf Pack and UConn men's hockey in October. Improvements included upgrades to the mechanical system, locker rooms and concourse, replacing jumbotrons with

816-553: The bulk of their Big East Conference games—to the Coliseum. During the 2011–2012 season, for instance, they played 11 home games at the Coliseum and only eight at their on-campus facility, Gampel Pavilion . This practice continued when the Huskies joined the American Athletic Conference , successor to the original Big East, in 2013. The UConn men's hockey team uses the XL Center as its primary home as

850-599: The collapse. The building was extensively renovated and re-opened on January 17, 1980. The Arena hosted the Hartford Whalers from 1975 to 1997, when the team relocated to Raleigh to become the Carolina Hurricanes . In 1994, new owner Peter Karmanos pledged to keep the Whalers in Connecticut until 1998, unless they could not sell over 11,000 season tickets. After failed negotiations to build

884-458: The heavy snow that fell on that January night. According to the official City investigation, the roof began progressive failure as soon as it had been installed. Contributing factors included design errors, an underestimation of the weight of the roof, and differences between the design and the actual built structure." Investigations attributed the design issues to the unprecedented use of and trust in computer analysis. An absence of peer review for

918-471: The home of the then– New England Whalers for three years. In the early morning of January 18, 1978, the Civic Center's roof collapsed. Engineering analyses during litigation following the collapse indicated that compression members were overloaded through undersizing and underestimation of the probable loadings, and that lateral bracing of individual members was insufficient. "The roof did not fail due to

952-469: The managing general partner of the Whalers until the team was sold to local ownership in 1988. In 2009, Baldwin founded Hartford Hockey LLC , better known as Whalers Sports & Entertainment , to promote ice hockey throughout Connecticut. In August 2010, Whalers Sports and Entertainment was hired by the NHL's New York Rangers to manage the day-to-day business and marketing affairs for their AHL affiliate

986-598: The minor league affiliate of the NHL Penguins. When Belzberg left the ownership group, Baldwin recruited Roger Marino, a Boston investor. By that time, the Penguins were struggling financially and wound up declaring bankruptcy in November 1998. The WHA's Robert Schmertz Memorial Trophy was originally named the Howard Baldwin Trophy in his honor. In 2010, he was elected as an inaugural inductee into

1020-809: The newest men's member of Hockey East . It was the home of the New England/Hartford Whalers of the WHA and NHL from 1975 to 1978 and 1980 to 1997, and the Hartford Hellions of the MISL from 1980 to 1981, and the New England Blizzard of the ABL from 1996 to 1998, and hosted occasional Boston Celtics home games from 1975 to 1995. One of the most famous shots Larry Bird ever made, although it did not count, took place at

1054-400: The novel structure and design process, and fragmentation of oversight responsibility during construction were also cited as contributing factors. Evidence showed that the roof had started to fail during construction, with bowed compression members. These distortions, and an unpredicted degree of deflection in the structure, were not investigated before the collapse. There were no injuries due to

Printscape Arena at Southpointe - Misplaced Pages Continue

1088-720: The team became the Hartford Whalers and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). He has also owned part of the Minnesota North Stars and Pittsburgh Penguins NHL franchises. He is the CEO of Baldwin Entertainment, which has produced films such as the Academy Award -nominated Ray . Baldwin has had a long-standing involvement with ice hockey in Connecticut since the early 1970s, starting with

1122-600: Was chosen to take over both the XL Center and Rentschler Field with Ovations Food Services taking over all food and beverage operations. The Civic Center is the full-time home of the Hartford Wolf Pack AHL hockey team and part-time home of the University of Connecticut (UConn) men's and women's basketball teams and the UConn Huskies men's ice hockey team. Starting in the late 1990s, UConn men's basketball moved most of their important games—including

1156-481: Was president of the league. The Whalers first season in the WHA was a success both on and off the ice with coach Jack Kelley's team winning the 1973 AVCO World Cup Championship. Kelley was also the very first recipient of a trophy named after Baldwin, the WHA's coach of the year award. In 1974, Baldwin determined that the team needed its own building as the Whalers had been sharing the Boston Garden arena with

#890109