Harry How
The Stanley Cup final is off to Vancouver and Game 7, mercifully bidding adieu to Boston's TD Garden.
And not a moment too soon, because the place is a dump.
On the outside, it is a monstrosity, an eyesore in an otherwise charming city. Boston has all these wonderful sites and classic architecture, and then there is the bland, oversized arena that juts out like a welt on an MMA fighter's forehead.
On the inside, it is so inefficient you wonder if a single engineer was consulted before its construction.
The place opened in 1995, and was built in a rapid-fire 27 months, at a cost of $160-million U.S. The rush job shows, because there are missing details like elevators and staircases.
There are two elevators to serve working personnel, but one only goes up to certain floors. So if you need to get to the top of the facility from the bottom, you have to change elevators as if it was a subway line. Ridiculous.
You can take the stairs, but some staircases end at a certain level. And you aren't directed to the next set of stairs, so it's like being in a subway system with no map. More ridiculous.
The wait for elevators is painfully slow, and it inconveniences assistant coaches who are trying to get down to the dressing rooms between periods. Not very professional. Not very big league.
Heaven forbid that a VIP like Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs an elevator to himself, because that slows service to a crawl, ensures that hot food will arrive cold at its intended destination, ensures that cold beverages get warm.
Not that you want to eat anything in the Garden. It isn't the cleanest place.
A mouse ran through the press room on the morning of Game 4. At least, we hope it was a mouse.
Then there are the hockey facilities, which leave loads to be desired.
The visitors dressing room is smaller than the rooms at your local rink, and the Bruins dressing room is smaller than the visitors' dressing room at Rogers Arena. While other sport franchises have identified locker rooms as important places - sanctuaries for existing players, recruiting tools for free agents - Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs was busy wedging his team's room into an oversize broom closet.
Of course, given Jacobs's cheapskate history, you can see why. Dressing rooms are non-revenue generating space. Why spend on areas that won't pay you back?
All in all, a horrible place to work, and given how miserably they failed on this building, they might as well have just kept the old Garden.
At least it had some history.