Search Results

It wouldn't be the playoff time without needing to talk about the Coyotes, a team that so rarely gets to play this time of year. While this post is more opinion than informative, we are including a little history lesson on the Coyotes situation by Rinks Around The League. I would encourage everyone to check out this thorough look at what the Coyotes have gone through from their inauguration to current day. For quite a while, I have hoped the team would be sold and relocated to another market. Having watched this video, I no longer wish for this outcome. I can't blame the fanbase for not supporting the team. I can't blame it all on Glendale or Phoenix. Multiple owners have tried and failed to make this franchise work. I could no longer wish this franchise on another market. My new view on this would be to shut down the franchise. The team that was the Winnipeg Jets, Phoenix Coyotes, and Arizona Coyotes would be no more. It would cease to exist. Once the team is dissolved, open up the possibility of an expansion team. New ownership, new team, no baggage - fresh start. What are your thoughts on this franchise? Stay, go, or go away?

We finally get a look at detailed renderings of what the temporary home of the Arizona Coyotes will look like. These images come from the recently uploaded seat locator. While the recent reports of the agreement between the Sun Devils and Coyotes have been mis-interpreted, it is safe to assume that the renderings here do not represent the future center ice or red line design. It has been strongly suggested that the center ice will have both team's logos. From the renderings above, we can see that there may be some sort of LED screen on the bottom of the scoreboard. It will be interesting to see if this is in fact an LED screen, and if so, how it will be used. It could make for an easy method for each team to have an advertisement below the scoreboard. If you would like to take a virtual tour of the arena bowl, head over to the Coyotes' Virtual Venue website. As for what the ice may end up looking like, we have created a concept using the Sun Devils sponsorships and both team's logos at center ice. The red line is a traditional checkered pattern which would not favor either team. There is still no official arena name for the arena portion of the building, so we used the name of the entire complex as a placeholder. The arena is set to open in time for the Coyotes to begin their road trip without the need for an extended road trip. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see how this arrangement works out for an NHL team.

In our never-ending quest to build upon and improve our center ice archive, we are excited to announce a new feature. We are now creating Stanley Cup Playoffs/Final rink layouts. While the playoff ice layouts in recent seasons have been far from exciting, the league has had a history of adding a little flair to the rink in the post-season. We will begin building out this history in the NHL Center Ice Archive. These will be kept separate from the main center ice timeline. To view these rinks, switch the Regular Season dropdown to "Stanley Cup Playoffs" or "Stanley Cup Final" option. The League stopped using Playoff Logos on ice following the Pandemic when they learned that they could make money off of that spot instead. The only change with rinks since then has been the league mandated playoff ads in the four corners of the rink. We are adding a little attention to detail regarding how the teams go about swapping out/adding logos. Some teams repaint the ice for the playoffs, while others just add sponsors/playoff logos and then freeze more water over that. This leads to the new logos looking much brighter than the older markings. Unfortunately, most teams have to do this because of scheduling and lack of time to prepare the ice. Keep watching for more ices to be added. FYI: You can see recent ices that have been added by clicking the Center Ice tab in the navigation bar at the top of the site.

Many fans around St. Louis have old relics from the former home of the Blues, including old seats and banners. One major piece of history that made it out of the old Arena before it's implosion was the center hung scoreboard, but it has since gone missing. For a small group of Blues fans, it was their hope that it survived and that they might be able to find it. This group formed a page on Facebook called "Find the Old Arena Scoreboard" and they were looking for more people who might have information on it. We received a tip from @MrBluesHat that it was once in storage at the City Museum. We checked in with the City Museum here is the story of the old St. Louis Arena scoreboard. When the Kiel Center opened it's doors in 1994, there was an auction held at the old arena and fans got the opportunity to bid on many items before the place would be imploded a few years later. Once of the items that would be sold was the scoreboard which hung above the event floor since the Blues had first taken the ice in 1967. While it is not known for sure who bought the scoreboard from the Blues, we do know that at some point it landed in the hands of a local bar owner who ran Schmeizings. It hung above the bar as you can see in this rare picture below. This bar was later torn down but the scoreboard was once again removed to avoid its own destruction. It is unclear whether it was sold or donated, but it became property of the St. Louis City Museum. It would sit in storage for a number of years, presumably waiting to find a proper home within the Museum. Its temporary location was believed to be this storage facility in a blighted neighborhood in northern St. Louis. A few years ago, thieves busted in through a the wall of this rundown old building and ransacked the place for anything they could find of value. They scrapped out what they could of the old scoreboard, leaving only broken pieces and a bare frame behind. What was left of the scoreboard was presumably still in this building and destroyed during the demolition of this building a couple years ago. Not the news this group wanted to hear, but at least the mystery is now settled. It would have been a fine addition to the museum, or perhaps someday the Blues could have purchased the board and hung in in the atrium of Scottrade Center, much like the Cardinals have done with the old Busch Stadium scoreboard.

Continuing our "What If" series by looking at what it might look like if the NHL still put Stanley Cup Playoff logos in the ice. Of course, this is unlikely as they were replaced in 2020 for superimposed ads. But what if?... Here is a look at a couple rinks with the new Playoff logos that the NHL recently released. And then there is the Stanley Cup Final Version. For one final concept, I know this one won't be possible this season, but for our French speaking friends up north, how about a look at a French/English version. Let us know what you think of these in the comments below.

One of the most common things we hear from our followers is "Why won't the NHL get rid of the red line in the center circle?" In this installment of our "What If" series, we will look at what each of the 32 rinks might look like without a line splitting up the logo. While we are at it, let's assume the NHL might relax the rule on center circle colors (as some teams already have their own unique color, or logo doubling as the center circle). A couple notes: In part 1 of this installment, we are only making minor changes to make the layout for each team. Vegas is an exception because we do not have the current season's logo without the red line cutting through it. What do you think of these layouts? Let us know what you like and what you don't like in the comments below. Stay tuned for part 2 where we will get a little more creative with some of these teams.

Our tenth anniversary season has come to a close. It was a big year for the center ice archive, as well as the website in general. We rang in the new season with a brand-new website, built from the ground up. Through the year, we have upgraded and tweaked the site to make it more user friendly. We set out to expand the ice archive, but we had no idea how much it would truly grow over the course of this one season. The entire archive now has full rink graphics, many of which include a pre-game and post-game skated look. On top of that, we have added advertisements to all NHL rinks and are working on expanding to other leagues. Speaking of leagues, we also added several new leagues to the archive including the BCHL, USHL and PHF. As we look ahead to our eleventh season, we will continue to expand the center ice archive and add more authentic ads to the ice rinks. We are going to try to build out the Central Hockey League, USHL and BCHL leagues as well. We will mark the end of our anniversary with a big thanks to everyone who has helped us in making this past year a reason for celebration. From our followers to our contributors, we could not do this without you!

Things have been a bit quiet on social media in terms of new graphics being posted for a while now. Behind the scenes, however, the work has never stopped. We have upgraded our rink templates to include some more realistic ice and lighting effects. This is our most realistic ice texture yet! Take a look at the following snips from the new textures. The ice texture itself still contains some skate cuts, but also includes horizontal streaks left by the Zamboni, and some water droplets showing how recently the ice was resurfaced. You will also notice light reflections. We tested many different lighting designs and kept them toned down enough that they would be noticeable, but not take away from the overall logos and markings on the ice. The lighting will even be noticeable on the post-game rinks, though it will not be as prominent just as it would appear in real life. These new textures can be found on most NHL ices already, and soon on other leagues as well. Ever since introducing in-ice advertisements for the NHL, we have received requests for authentic ads for more leagues. This is quite a task with minor leagues due to the lack of reference photos/videos that are available. That won't stop us from trying though. Starting now, we will be adding in-ice advertisements to as many AHL rinks as possible and any other leagues we are able to find references for. Please note that in some cases, ads may not be 100% accurate due to the lack of good reference shots to work with. We will try to get them as accurate as possible. With this challenge, we could sure use your help. Any photos/videos you could provide for current and/or past seasons of your favorite Minor League team would be extremely helpful!

This morning our site was featured on Post 2 Post Productions as Neil, the host, ranked all 32 of this season's NHL ice designs. Post 2 Post covers all things NHL from big trades to jersey design rankings, and even critiques amateur jersey concept. It is a quality channel with new content daily. (They are not a sponsor--we are just big fans of their videos). We hope you will head over to their channel and subscribe. Here is their ranking of all of the ice rinks.

The ice is ready for the 2022 Discover NHL Winter Classic at Target Field in Minneapolis, MN. The outline of the red line and the snowflake at center ice are a staple of the winter classic in recent years, but the design team has added a few more clever details to the rink this season. The faceoff dots all have snow flakes in them matching the one at the center ice dot. The same snowflake can be found at both ends of the Winter Classic word mark around the center circle. While this isn't the greatest photo of the blue line, it is enough to show us what may be the coolest blue line we have ever seen. Below is a cleaner look at what it looks like. You will also notice that this is the first Winter Classic that does not use any red line through the center circle. The 2020 Winter Classic featured only an outline of the red line. This is sure to make many fans happy and makes us wonder if this could eventually find its way to home team ice designs. The NHL has certainly been testing it out a bit more in recent years during non-regulation games, but this is only the second time for a game with 2 points on the line. The ice is sure to impress the fans. Here is a look at the full rink. For full resolution images and a post-game version, head on over to the center ice archive. Let us know in the comments what you think of the details in this season's Winter Classic rink design.

Have you ever wanted to build an ice rink in your back yard? How hard could it be? Well, there's actually more to it than you might expect, but Jeff Nash, of Rinks Around the League, recently built one and is showing us how it is done with no special equipment.

Our tenth anniversary season isn't over, and we said we would have more new content coming to celebrate. Today we are excited to announce another new feature coming to the Center Ice Archive. We have two new ice rink textures! A couple months ago we announced our new 3d Neutral Zone graphics which would be added to the entire archive. Those have been coming along well, but now we have added new full rink graphics. Under each rink in our archive, you will find two buttons. You can download a mostly clean rink called "Pre-Game Rink" which has an all-new texture to make it look more authentic to a freshly resurfaced ice rink. The second button will let you download a "Post-Game Rink" which features many skate marks and visible wear to the ice surface. We spent a lot of time and researched a lot of overhead shots of ice rinks near the end of a period or end of game to get that skated look as accurate as possible. As of the time of this announcement, we already have completed the new post-game rinks for the following. NHL - current teams (all seasons) PHF - complete archive SPHL - current teams (all seasons) AHL - 2022 season ECHL 2022 season There are some other teams/years that have been completed around the site on top of what is listed above. Any page that contains a 3D neutral zone graphic at the top also has a post-game ice rink. The hard part was getting the current NHL teams done because there are so many rinks involved. The remainder of the rinks around the site will be popping up pretty quickly over the coming month or so. Soon we will have the entire center ice archive upgraded with these rinks. Then it will be time to add a couple more leagues, but more on that later.

Beginning December 25, 2021, STAPLES Center will become Crypto.com Arena as part of a new 20 year, 700 million dollar naming rights package. The downtown arena has had only one name in its history, and it was supposed to remain that way as STAPLES had previously renewed their naming rights with a "Lifetime" agreement. We first wondered if something was going with the arena name back in August when the Kings painted their ice. Soon after that photo was taken, the STAPLES Center text was added, meaning they painted the rest of the ice on one layer, and then the text on a higher layer. This would allow for a much easier change later on. So now its time to see what the new arena name could look like on ice. Here is our prediction along with an alternate. For a full resolution rink, head over to the concepts page. Here is one alternative that we tried, but we honestly could not find any other placement that looked decent. What do you think of the name, and its placement on the ice? Let us know in the comments.

A quick roundup of rink related news to catch you up to speed on the developments of Rinks Around the League. This update includes news about Climate Pledge Arena, UBS Arena, FLA Live Arena and more!

On January 1, 2022, the Minnesota Wild will host the St. Louis Blues in an outdoor setting for the Winter Classic. The game will be played at Target Field in Minneapolis. Both teams have unveiled their uniforms for the game and we have gotten a look at the 2022 Winter Classic logo. Here is our concept of what the ice might look like for that event. Minnesota will bring back multiple elements to remember their history with a new and unique jersey. St. Louis will throw things back to their very first season with a cream version of their original white jerseys. What do you think of this season's upcoming match up? Which team has the better jersey? Should the NHL start changing up the cookie cutter template for ice designs for the Winter Classic? Let us know in the comments below.

For many, this will feel like a minor detail of little importance. However, for a site that focuses so much on the center ice designs, it is a big day. NHL 22 gameplay has been revealed and the center ice circle is finally regulation size. It is hard to believe that for a decade of EA Sports NHL video games, we have had a smaller center ice than is regulated on the actual rinks. And before you say, "Why would you care about this and not the actual gameplay issues?" let me just say I do. You can go anywhere and find all the info you want about gameplay issues though, so why add to that list when that is not our specialty. And we do feel it is important to have a regulation ice surface. Can you imagine if football games messed up the field dimensions? Well now we finally have proof that the center circle issue has been fixed. Use the fader below to see the same view of the ice from NHL 21 and NHL 22. Is it a huge difference? No, but when you see the players all facing off at that circle in NHL 21, it sure does look weird. We are glad to see this issue finally resolved and we are also excited to see more subtle ice details that have been improved. Once we see all of the center ice designs for this year's game, we will be sure to take a look at their accuracy.