Boston’s Matthews Arena to close after 100-plus years of hockey, hoops and even the Sultan of Swat
For more than a century, Matthews Arena has stood on Boston’s Huntington Avenue as a living scrapbook of basketball and hockey history. Soon, its doors will close, taking with them one of the sport’s most quietly influential stages.
Though best known today as Northeastern University’s home rink, the building’s legacy stretches deep into basketball’s formative years. Long before gleaming downtown arenas and billion‑dollar practice facilities, Matthews (originally built under a different name) offered a rare big‑city stage for the pro and college game. Generations of Boston fans filed through its doors to see early professional teams, barnstorming stars and the kind of doubleheaders that helped basketball grow from a regional pastime into a national obsession.
The arena’s significance to the NBA ecosystem is less about a single iconic moment and more about continuity. It served as an incubator for the sport in New England, a place where the game was accessible, intimate and loud. Coaches, officials and players who would later touch the NBA landscape first experienced high‑level hoops in buildings like this one, where the bleachers creaked and the game felt close enough to touch.
Matthews also reflects a broader shift in how basketball spaces are built and valued. Today’s NBA arenas are multiuse entertainment complexes, wrapped in luxury suites and digital signage. Historic barns with low ceilings and narrow concourses struggle to compete with the economic demands of the modern sports industry, no matter how rich their stories. The closure underscores the tension between preserving heritage and pursuing revenue, a balance every major basketball city now wrestles with.
League observers often talk about the NBA’s global expansion and technological future, but the loss of a venue like Matthews is a reminder that the sport’s roots are local and tactile. Hardwood history was written in places that smelled of popcorn and cold air, where fans learned the rhythms of pick‑and‑rolls and fast breaks long before they appeared on national broadcasts.
When the lights go out for the final time, Boston will still be a basketball city. It will just be missing one of the rooms where that identity was quietly, and faithfully, built.
Though best known today as Northeastern University’s home rink, the building’s legacy stretches deep into basketball’s formative years. Long before gleaming downtown arenas and billion‑dollar practice facilities, Matthews (originally built under a different name) offered a rare big‑city stage for the pro and college game. Generations of Boston fans filed through its doors to see early professional teams, barnstorming stars and the kind of doubleheaders that helped basketball grow from a regional pastime into a national obsession.
The arena’s significance to the NBA ecosystem is less about a single iconic moment and more about continuity. It served as an incubator for the sport in New England, a place where the game was accessible, intimate and loud. Coaches, officials and players who would later touch the NBA landscape first experienced high‑level hoops in buildings like this one, where the bleachers creaked and the game felt close enough to touch.
Matthews also reflects a broader shift in how basketball spaces are built and valued. Today’s NBA arenas are multiuse entertainment complexes, wrapped in luxury suites and digital signage. Historic barns with low ceilings and narrow concourses struggle to compete with the economic demands of the modern sports industry, no matter how rich their stories. The closure underscores the tension between preserving heritage and pursuing revenue, a balance every major basketball city now wrestles with.
League observers often talk about the NBA’s global expansion and technological future, but the loss of a venue like Matthews is a reminder that the sport’s roots are local and tactile. Hardwood history was written in places that smelled of popcorn and cold air, where fans learned the rhythms of pick‑and‑rolls and fast breaks long before they appeared on national broadcasts.
When the lights go out for the final time, Boston will still be a basketball city. It will just be missing one of the rooms where that identity was quietly, and faithfully, built.
