Warriors, Come Out and Play

Lawler Arena

Source: http://tinyurl.com/mrsfcof

North Andover, Massachusetts
Opened: 1972
Seating Capacity: 2549

The next arena I will be examining in my blog is Lawler Arena, which is home to the Merrimack Warriors ice hockey team.

Merrimack is one team that is does not participate in the Atlantic Hockey League. Instead, they play in the Hockey East Conference with schools such as Boston College, Boston University, and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. The arena is a cool college arena that is part of a multipurpose sports complex located on Merrimack's campus. There is a basketball arena located across a hallway from Lawler Arena.

Like that of Holy Cross' arena, Lawler Arena has painted stanchions. These stanchions are yellow instead of purple.
The arena has individual seating on three sides of arena. The seating is blue to match the Warriors' uniforms and rises to roughly ten rows. I believe the arena underwent renovations in 2010 which added the seat-back seating and the student section seating behind the goal-line. These renovations were said to have caused a rise in attendance.

Merrimack's arena also has an awesome digital screen that is located on the end of the rink without seating. It is made from a bunch of individual smaller screens that are in sync to create one larger display. It is a very cool technology and it gives the fans varying perspectives on the game.

I have only played one game at Lawler arena, but from what I can remember, the ice surface is rather quick and hard. Like I've said many times before, this creates a favorable environment to play on. The boards seemed to be rather lively which also facilitates a faster game speed.

We played the Warriors on a Friday night and there was a pretty good turnout in attendance. I really enjoy having the student section seated behind the goal-line as it seems to increase the volume of their voice. I definitely think it was an enjoyable atmosphere that I would definitely want to play in again.

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- Joshua