20. Enmax Centrium, Red Deer
One of the last of the 80's coliseums built before the age of the clones, Red Deer's rink is about as good as 80's coliseums get (and never mind it opened in the early 90's). Great views of the ice, gameday ops are terrific, a well-stocked team store is always a plus, and I love the way the rink looks now that those green seats have been replaced with black ones.
19. Canada Life Place, London
Ranking your hometown arena is always hard, but I think this is about fair. Atmosphere is generally pretty good, sightlines are decent especially from the upper level, and the downtown location incorporating a heritage building is perfect. But the corporate, ad-heavy gameday experience leaves a lot to be desired, and while the Hunters have spared no expense at anything related to the team's on-ice performance, there are many CHL teams that do a better job at running AV. If they managed to headhunt the operations manager from somewhere that does AV incredibly well, like Dallas, it might easily bump London into the top ten.
18. Langley Events Centre, Vancouver
One of the best of the clone rinks, the architecture is very west coast, the concessions have some excellent local food options, and the atmosphere by modern clone standards is very good. The location out in the middle of nowhere isn't the greatest, but the team deserves points for doing so well in the suburbs where teams like Mississauga and Boisbriand have struggled. I'm sad to have missed out on the Pacific Coliseum, but the Giants having a rink to truly call their own is better for them anyway.
17. Dow Event Center, Saginaw
Ranked this high almost entirely on the strength of the local fans, who are among the friendliest I've ever encountered on the road. Atmosphere is generally top notch in Saginaw, the downtown location is about as good as it gets, and the all-pervasive smell of toasted beer nuts throughout the arena has me salivating just thinking about it. Sightlines are pretty terrific as well, and the renovations in anticipation of the 2024 Memorial Cup fixed the minor maintenance issues I'd once had with this rink.
16. Centre Gervais Auto, Shawinigan
The only new CHL rink built since about the mid-90's that isn't a clone, Shawinigan has good atmosphere, team colours everywhere, and a scoreboard and light show that's easily on a par with most NHL teams. It's a weird one, with a strange interior layout that feels decades older than it is, and loads of parking on site somehow despite being located right in downtown Shawinigan. I could easily have ranked this ten places higher or lower and had it feel just as right as slot 16.
15. Centre Marcel-Dionne, Drummondville
My longest active drought in the CHL, my only visit here was in January of 2005 for a rivalry game against Victoriaville, and the crowd got so intense that the SQ had to be called in to break up multiple fights in the grandstands. Drummondville's rink is small, colourful, intimate, and the passion of those hometown fans is hard to duplicate. One of the best atmospheres in the CHL. I'd love to go back sometime.
14. Agridome, Regina
Orange traffic pylon architecture aside, the Agridome has tons of team history on display as benefits the oldest junior team in the world. Atmosphere was decent enough the day I went, and for a larger rink, the sightlines are still pretty intimate. Regina's gameday experience is classy above all else.
13. Centre Henry-Leonard, Baie-Comeau
In a previous draft of this list I had Baie-Comeau ranked as high as 6, which seems a little excessive, but man, I really loved it up there. Despite my conversational French being pretty good, I've often found Quebec rinks less than welcoming of Anglo outsiders. Baie-Comeau was the happy exception for me – the only place I've ever felt truly welcomed by friendly Francophone fans. But it's a pretty decent arena too, small and intimate and a great place to watch hockey.
12. WFCU Centre, Windsor
I've seen Windsor at its best, with the crazy atmosphere from the Windsor Arena carried over, and when it gets rocking there are few better new buildings in the CHL. Windsor, like London, suffers a lot from far too much advertising during the games, and the atmosphere isn't always what it used to be, but Windsor crowds still haven't totally lost their intensity. Ultra-steep angle of seating is a terrific design choice. The only real flaw is the terrible location out in the middle of nowhere, with not enough parking – if the rink was downtown it likely would have cracked the top ten.
11. Peterborough Memorial Centre, Peterborough
I always wanted to love Peterborough even more than this. It's one of the true classics of junior hockey, surviving and thriving into the third decade of the new century, and it should be one of my favourite places to go. But I've never once seen a great atmosphere in Peterborough, with fans sitting on their hands most games, even in the OHL finals. It's also hard to navigate around the arena since they opened the club seating down the one side. Don't get me wrong, it's a great hockey experience and I'll be sad to see it go when it's finally replaced, but I've never quite fallen in love with Peterborough the way I have with some of the other CHL classic rinks.
10. Visit Lethbridge.com Arena, Lethbridge
I saw the Bedard show in Lethbridge, a game that likely otherwise wouldn't have come close to selling out. So maybe this is ranked too high, but I still think the bare bones of a great CHL rink are there in Lethbridge. The views from the front row of the upper level are incredible, the rink feels bigger than it is, with only having seats on three sides, but it also somehow feels quite intimate. The team does a wonderful job with their gameday ops. One of my favourite mid-century rinks out there.
9. Accesso ShoWare Center, Seattle
This is the highest-ranked new arena on my list, which for some people probably means it should be as high as number one. And don't get me wrong, it's the second-best modern clone rink I've done, with only ECHL Toledo topping it. It's got terrific sightlines and a wonderful atmosphere, with intense, diehard fans. I've heard many horror stories about how badly Seattle fans can treat visiting fans, so I'm glad I had no rooting interest going into Kent, and that I was able to take in a game there as a true neutral. But despite how much I enjoyed my visit there, I wouldn't want to go in there with a Winterhawks or Silvertips jersey on.
8. Colisée Financière Sun Life, Rimouski
Impeccably maintained, some of the most comfortable seats in junior hockey, and it's still got a ton of old building character. Rimouski is a classic example of what you can get when you spend the money keeping an old rink up to date instead of tearing down and building new. I found the atmosphere in Rimouski only mid-range by Quebec standards, but the Océanic are a class organization and you can tell that everywhere you look around the Colisée. It's a great junior barn.
7. Sudbury Arena, Sudbury
Hard to believe it's only got a few years left to live – Sudbury Arena really should be maintained forever as a junior hockey museum. I've been to a lot of old pre and immediate post-war arenas that are no longer with us, and Sudbury always was one of the best ones. The late Art Deco artifice is everywhere in Sudbury, all the views of the ice are incredible, and fan support is terrific. I haven't been up there in quite some time now, but I will absolutely make one more trip to say goodbye before the new arena opens.
6. Centre Georges-Vézina, Chicoutimi
If Peterborough represents English Protestant Canada with its portrait of the Queen and quiet, restrained fans, Chicoutimi is French Catholic Canada with a cruciform in the rafters and intense, crazy fans. CGV has so much character and atmosphere; I could easily have wandered around for an hour even with no game on just taking it all in. I hope they someday permanently fix the leaking roof so that it can stay open another seventy years.
5. Portland Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Portland
The only thing keeping this place from being ranked higher is the fact that it quite obviously wasn't designed with hockey in mind. The Coliseum is an architectural masterpiece, a showplace of mid-century modernism, the kind of arena you could write a book about after spending a couple of days just wandering around and gawking. It is such a rare experience to go into something with twenty-plus years of high expectations behind you and actually having them exceeded, but that was my visit to Portland. And it's not just the arena, either - the atmosphere in Portland is equally good, and the fans, considering how big a city Portland is, were incredibly welcoming. Making it back someday for the annual open curtains game has instantly become a bucket list item for me.
4. Art Hauser Centre, Prince Albert
Art Hauser Centre is a lovingly-maintained 70's barn with a real wood ceiling, intimate sightlines, and an excellent atmosphere, but what pushes it up to 4 in my rankings is that these are the friendliest fans I've encountered out of all 60. I went to Prince Albert with a friend who was cheering for the visiting Pats that night; no matter, we were enthusiastically welcomed and treated like kings. Any arena, no matter how nice a building it is, is only as good as the people inside of it, and PA is as good as it comes in the CHL.
3. Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, Kitchener
The temple of junior hockey. The expansion some years ago did ruin a bit of the old intimacy, and unfortunately there's no longer enough parking for everyone on site now that there's 3,000 additional seats, which is a bit of an issue considering how suburban the location is. But that aside, the Aud is still as good as it gets, and it is the one place in English Canada that I'd take someone to as an introduction to junior hockey above anywhere else. It is loud, it is intimate, and it would be absolutely perfect, if only it weren't full of damned Ranger fans!
2. Palais des Sports, Sherbrooke
Sherbrooke is my childhood brought back to life. I grew up going to games at the London Gardens, which closed in 2002, and which was essentially a clone of the Palais des Sports. Sherbrooke showed me what my old home rink could have become had it been maintained and renovated and brought forward into the future. They say you can't ever truly go home again, but Sherbrooke was the closest thing I've ever had to it in all the arenas I've been to across all levels of hockey, and if I won an all-expenses paid trip anywhere on this list, this would be the one I'd choose to go back to. I loved spending an afternoon in the equivalent of my old season-ticket seat in London, reminiscing and remembering.
1. Centre Agnico Eagle, Val-d'Or
An impossibly intimate, lyric little bandbox of an arena, where every seat feels like it's hanging off the wall, where you're close enough to hear the players talking to each other on the ice, where there are enough Anglos in the crowd that speaking French isn't an issue but it's still got that crazily intense Quebec atmosphere, where junior hockey is at its absolute best. This is the Wrigley Field of junior hockey, and it would be better known if it weren't located in a remote mining town in northern Quebec. But for those of us who've been, we know. Val-d'Or's rink gets into your soul, and while I've only been the one time in 2007, not one hockey season has gone by since that I haven't daydreamed about making the long drive back up to Nord-du-Québec. My favourite rink in the CHL.