Barrie Colts
Arena Name: Sadlon Arena
Capacity: 4,195
Built: 1995
Address: 555 Bayview Drive, Barrie, ON, L4N 8Y2
Telephone No: (705) 739-4220
Ice Surface Size: Regulation
Franchise Date: 1995-96
OHL Championships: 1, in 1999-2000
Memorial Cup Championships: None
Colours: Navy, Yellow, Red & White
Official Web Site: BarrieColts.com
Former Arena: Barrie Arena
Sadlon Arena
What's the Arena Like?
First Visit: November 16, 2002
CHL Arena: 7
OHL Arena: 7
Barrie's Sadlon Arena has always been one of my least-visited OHL arenas. Part of it has to do with the fact they're an Eastern Conference team and my Knights only play there once a season, part of it is that the city is just far enough away to feel like a longer drive, and part of it has to do with the fact that the arena has never felt like a destination that you'd ever make a point of going to. I went to a handful of games in Barrie during my early OHL travel days, but after seeing a Knights loss in October 2006, it fell off the radar for me, and stayed that way. Somehow, nineteen years passed.
In the wake of political tensions between Canada and the U.S. in 2025, it seemed to me to be advisable to start re-visiting some OHL buildings I hadn't visited since the 2000's, and I finally made the trip back up in December of 2025. What I found up there, from a fresh perspective with well over a hundred different arenas visited since my last time there, was a building that was more intimate and weirder than I remembered, but still one that's fundamentally flawed.
The Barrie Molson Centre opened in December 1995, on what was then a pretty empty four lane road in the south end of the city. In the past thirty years, big box development has encroached on the arena from all sides, and the location now is a suburban hellscape of malls and power centres with its attendant traffic. The arena still sits a short distance off Highway 400 and surrounded by parking lots, but one could in theory at least walk somewhere for dinner now versus when I was there before.
The Sadlon Arena is an attractive light-coloured building with an arched roofline and a huge marquee sign announcing its presence to the surrounding neighbourhood. The walk from the parking lot is a cold one in winter, and with the development starting to encroach on the parking lot a little, there no longer are enough places for everyone despite the rink's small capacity.
Getting this out of the way now - Barrie's new rink was the first of the new generation in the OHL, and as the prototype of the new breed, mistakes were made in its construction. The leap forward from nearby Ray Twinney Complex in Newmarket, less than a decade older, is astonishing, but Barrie's rink was still built far too small and in the wrong location. The rink feels very intimate in the way a lot of clones aren't, with steeply-raked seats and a low ceiling, but part of this is that for a building with barely more than 4,000 seats, every available space in the arena has been used. Any potential expansion would involve blowing out walls to accomplish, which they absolutely could do, but it's not like the rink has roughed-in space for expansion. Barrie famously bid every three years to host the Memorial Cup in the 2000's and 2010's and never got one, mostly because of how tiny the rink is.
Additionally, there are some other highly strange things afoot in Barrie. There is a suite level along the glass on one side, a quirk I've never seen anywhere else before, which means that the premium seats on one entire side of the building simply don't exist. It's not like the suites are missing elsewhere, either, as there's another suite level at the top of the seating on the same side! Additionally, the concourse in one corner narrows so much that you can reach out and touch both walls at once for some reason, so traffic always bottlenecks there, and then (amazingly!) the concourse ducks through the restaurant behind one of the goals. What this means is that if you've got a table booked for a Colts game, the very best spots in the restaurant has the building's main concourse passing directly in front of you.
In comparison with the new breed of OHL rinks, the peripherals in Barrie are starting to seem dated. There aren't really enough washrooms or concessions, and the team store is tiny and out of the way. The scoreboard, like most places, is now a modern video board, but its usage is a throwback to twenty years ago when teams really didn't know how to use them effectively. The video screen only shows ads during play - there is no live feed of the game - and the advertising is so extensive that the Colts missed showing the replays of one of the goals of the game I went to. My last visit to Barrie the Colts also had the worst scoreboard in the OHL, with many burned-out lightbulbs in an old 90's-style board, and while the equipment has changed, the quality really hasn't.
Fan support in Barrie is a little difficult to understand. The arena is laid out perfectly for a raucous atmosphere, with steep seats on top of the action and a small capacity, plus the fact that Barrie usually draws near capacity crowds. Yet the arena is among the quietest buildings in the OHL. My first visit, we sat directly at the top of the building in the last row, and could literally hear the lights humming during play. For my second visit we were lower, but the near-capacity crowd was still stoic and silent. In 2025, the atmosphere still wasn't anything special - my pal Steve said that he's heard Colts crowds making noise before, but I certainly haven't in any of my trips up there.
My original writeup of Sadlon Arena, the one that lasted twenty years on this site, talked about the building as the prototype OHL clone, which it kind of was. But I'm so much more experienced myself now, and I've realized that Barrie actually isn't as cloney as I'd once thought. I generally say that weird is good when it comes to arena design, but the weirdness in Barrie isn't the good kind. It's traffic bottlenecks of both person inside and car outside, it's terrible restaurant seating, it's a building built too small and in the wrong place. Barrie's one major saving grace for me - the intimacy and great sightlines - are also what make the rink impossible to consider as a future Memorial Cup host, and thirty years after opening, it feels like a building that time has passed by a little. I don't think Barrie's rink will ever be a truly great one, and the major question for me now is whether the Colts will someday try to get a major renovation done, or if Barrie will be among the first of the 90's generation to close. It's a flawed building, and while I'm very glad to have gone back again in 2025, I can easily see another nineteen years going by before I prioritize making the trip again.
Inside Sadlon Arena
Future Developments
The agreement between Molson Breweries and the city of Barrie for naming rights expired in 2017, and the city attempted to sell the naming rights to the newest highest bidder, but failed to find anyone willing to meet the asking price. So the city just carried on, keeping the name the same as though nothing had happened. After two years of, essentially, giving Molson Coors the naming rights to a major arena for free, the brewery decided it no longer wanted its name attached to the arena, and sent the city a cease-and-desist letter. That's right - Molson wanted so little to do with the former Molson Centre that it threatened a lawsuit to get its name off the building. As of the fall of 2019, the arena was technically named the "BMC", and in November 2019 the naming rights were finally sold to Paul Sadlon Motors, a local auto dealer.
Barrie has been the OHL's "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" city, having unsuccessfully bid for the Memorial Cup more than any other CHL city. Sadlon Arena is the reason for this. Barrie city council, when debating the construction of the new arena, apparently looked at the OHL's minimum size guideline of 4000 seats and thought, "well, I guess we'll build 4000 seats!" As a result, the arena is way too small to host any major events in spite of the success the Colts have had on-ice since their formation. Today, most people in Barrie will readily admit that the arena was built too small.
As far as I know, there are no plans to renovate the Sadlon Arena, however most in the city will agree that it will be necessary at some point in the near future. Given the building's layout, it should be possible to expand the 18-row seating bowl on the one side around the end of the arena without too much difficulty, a move that would bring in at least another 500 seats without sacrificing any of the building's quirks, such as the ice-level suites.
The entry road to the arena was renamed 'Dale Hawerchuk Way' after the late Colts coach passed away, but the street address of the building hasn't changed.
Barrie has been the OHL's "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" city, having unsuccessfully bid for the Memorial Cup more than any other CHL city. Sadlon Arena is the reason for this. Barrie city council, when debating the construction of the new arena, apparently looked at the OHL's minimum size guideline of 4000 seats and thought, "well, I guess we'll build 4000 seats!" As a result, the arena is way too small to host any major events in spite of the success the Colts have had on-ice since their formation. Today, most people in Barrie will readily admit that the arena was built too small.
As far as I know, there are no plans to renovate the Sadlon Arena, however most in the city will agree that it will be necessary at some point in the near future. Given the building's layout, it should be possible to expand the 18-row seating bowl on the one side around the end of the arena without too much difficulty, a move that would bring in at least another 500 seats without sacrificing any of the building's quirks, such as the ice-level suites.
The entry road to the arena was renamed 'Dale Hawerchuk Way' after the late Colts coach passed away, but the street address of the building hasn't changed.
Franchise History
Barrie was added to the OHL as an expansion team in 1995-96, though technically it was a promotion of the former OJHL Colts into the OHL. It was Barrie's first OHL team since the 1950's, and because the Molson Centre wasn't finished on time, the Colts originally played at the same place as the 1950's Barrie Flyers did - the now-demolished Barrie Arena. The new arena opened in December 1995.
Retired Numbers
13 Kyle Clifford
18 Brian Little
The Colts have also retired 10 for Dale Hawerchuk, who never played for the Colts but coached them from 2010 until his untimely death from cancer in 2019.
18 Brian Little
The Colts have also retired 10 for Dale Hawerchuk, who never played for the Colts but coached them from 2010 until his untimely death from cancer in 2019.
Inside Sadlon Arena
Feedback
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Last Revised: December 21, 2025