Architecture on Ice: A History of the Hockey Arena by Howard Shubert (review)

Howard Shubert provides an examination of the history of professional ice hockey in North America through the unusual lens of architecture and the facilities that have housed, and continue to house, the sport. This book should appeal to both hockey aficionados and those interested in exploring the evolution of buildings within which people have played and continue to play. Shubert offers a compelling analysis as to how these spaces emerged and changed by addressing the social forces operating beyond the boards and sidelines. By clearly establishing the changing architectural influences of hockey arenas starting in the mid-1800s, Shubert addresses various cultural and economic imperatives – why the sport drew in people and how team owners responded to the business opportunities provided by the game – that influenced the design of first rinks, then arenas, and today the ubiquitous sports entertainment centre.

During the late nineteenth century, the first skating rinks where hockey emerged were commercial enterprises providing opportunities for a variety of ice-based recreations. Then, by the turn of the twentieth century, Canadian hockey entrepreneurs began to construct purposebuilt facilities for their teams. In the United States, National Hockey League (NHL) buildings, such as Madison Square Gardens in New York, included hockey but were not specifically designed for the sport. In the end, this type of early hockey facility, according to Shubert, represented the ancestor of the more recent sports entertainment centres of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Hockey-only buildings in Canada eventually gave way to the economic imperative of owners who sought to maximize their investment through cultivating multiple revenue steams.

The rich history of hockey is a clear focus of the book's early chapters. From nascent outdoor contests on natural ice to the first indoor skating rinks where Canadian and American enthusiasts began to define hockey's ultimate constitution, place assumes a central position in the origins of the game. Rinks in this early period remained rudimentary sites, yet with the emergence of artificial ice and skating and hockey's commercial possibilities, new opportunities emerged. This section is particularly well researched, drawing effectively from the body of literature chronicling hockey's beginnings. Although the focus at times drifts away from the architectural details associated with these early facilities, the reader is left with a clear understanding of the various competing ideas and interests underpinning skating rink design in this early period.

The growth of professional hockey, according to Shubert, was intimately tied to a variety of technologies including artificial ice, radio broadcasting, and purpose-built hockey arenas. As the NHL became the pre-eminent hockey league in the United States and Canada, the need arose for facilities capable of increasing the season's length (twenty-two games in 1917–18 to forty-four in 1926–31) and accommodating more spectators per game (an average of more than 13,000 by 1931). This period of early growth reached its zenith with the construction of the two iconic Canadian NHL arenas, the Montreal Forum and Maple Leaf Gardens. However, by the end of the twentieth century, these buildings became anachronisms.

The latter chapters examine the disappearance of the traditional hockey arena in favour of the sports entertainment centre. Shubert regularly ranges well outside the confines of hockey, arguing that two notable 1960s sport buildings – Madison Square Gardens IV and the Houston Astrodome – set the stage for the current corporate and consumer-focused hockey experience. These two buildings, with their architectural focus on providing a site for multiple entertainment events (not just sport) served as the blueprint for the sanitized "no place" corporate sports entertainment centres housing professional hockey today.

As a record of hockey buildings past and present, the images Shubert uses from architectural concept drawings to photos of past and existing facilities are excellent (more than 150 images). Ultimately, this study provides a contextualized record of the evolution of the spaces and places where hockey – primarily, the elite professional game – has been played. With architecture...