What's up, Doc?

Bowling Green State University Ice Arena

BGSU Ice Arena

Location: Bowling Green, Ohio
Opened: 1967
Seating Capacity: 5000

The next ice arena I will be featuring in my blog is the BGSU Ice Arena. Our team recently had the chance to play in this out of conference arena, and it is fresh in my memory.

Similarly to Mercyhurst Ice Arena, I actually came on a campus visit to Bowling Green University during my senior year of high school. Their coaching staff was recruiting me at the time. They obviously gave me a tour of the campus, and more importantly, the ice arena.

The first thing that jumped out at me when visiting Bowling Green was the amount of orange on campus. If you're not fond of the color orange, then I'd highly advise not attending this school. The ice arena is no exception. The seating benches, which hold 5000 screaming fans, are painted orange. The walls are covered in murals of alumni that are filled with orange. The dasher board, which is painted yellow in most ice rinks, is even plastered with orange. It is almost overwhelming.

The rink has a collegiate feel to it. It is relatively old, 50 years to be precise, but it doesn't have the ambience of a professional arena. The school is very proud of its hockey program; there are championship banners hanging, plaques of successful alumni, and even pictures recognizing BGSU players who proceeded to play at the Olympic  Games.

Doc and I at BGSU

We played the Falcons on a special night for their school. They were celebrating their arena's 50th year anniversary. Many alumni were in attendance for the game. None more widely known than NBC Sports announcer, Doc Emrick. Doc never played a game of hockey for BGSU, but he would commentate every second period the Falcons would play during his studies. He also commentated the second period during our game. You can listen here. Emrick's voice has also been recorded in the EA Sports' NHL video game series. He was waiting for us at the arena the day before our game to learn about our individual backgrounds and history. I was walking towards my teammates in the bleachers as I saw Doc walking down the stairs. He stopped, made direct eye contact with me, and had this look in his eyes as if he knew me. The first thing he said was "Josh Lammon?" This obviously caught me off guard, but was a pretty surreal encounter with one of the most famous hockey announcers in history. He then informed me that he had been studying our roster for the last week, and was trying to match our names and numbers with our faces. It was fascinating to see how much dedication and passion he has for his job.

The crowd was electric, as one could imagine, for such a large event and alumni celebration. I don't know the exact number of tickets sold, but I would imagine it was well over 4000, closer to 5000. Before the starting lineups, they hand out newspapers to every fan in the building. Then as our team was announced, they would hold the newspapers up and sit in silence. I have seen this before, but it was really neat to experience live. The fans were delirious when the Falcons scored. Unfortunately, we lost the game 3-0, and had to hear this uproar on three separate occasions. The result of the game however, didn't take away from the exhilaration I felt during those 60 minutes of play at BGSU Ice Arena.

Thank you for your continued support of my blog. Please feel free to share with your friends and family!

Until next time,

- Joshua Lammon


Here are a few other shots I took of the arena. Enjoy!

Notable Alumni

WCHA - BG's League