St. Louis Arena

St. Louis Arena
Construction
Postcard view c.1930s
Former names	Checkerdome (1977-1983)
Location	5700 Oakland Avenue St. Louis, Missouri
Coordinates	38°37′45″N 90°16′58″W / 38.62917°N 90.28278°W / 38.62917; -90.28278Coordinates: 38°37′45″N 90°16′58″W / 38.62917°N 90.28278°W / 38.62917; -90.28278
Owner	City of St. Louis^[1]
Operator	City of St. Louis^[1]
Capacity	Ice hockey: 14,200 (1929–1968), 14,500 (1968–1969), 15,500 (1969–1970), 17,776 (1970–1971), 17,821 (1971–1972), 18,005 (1972–1974), 18,008 (1974–1975), 18,006 (1975–1978), 17,968 (1978–1985), 17,640 (1985–1988), 17,188 (1988–1994)
Broke ground	1927
Opened	September 23, 1929
Closed	May 23, 1994
Demolished	February 27, 1999
Construction cost	$1.5 million ($20.7 million in 2016 dollars^[2])
Architect	Gustel R. Kiewitt
General contractor	Boaz-Kiel Construction Company
Tenants
St. Louis Flyers (AHA/AHL) (1929–1953) St. Louis Eagles (NHL) (1934–1935) Chicago Black Hawks (NHL) (occasional use; 1951–1959) St. Louis Braves (CHL) (1963–1967) St. Louis Blues (NHL) (1967–1994) St. Louis Hawks (NBA) (occasional use; 1955–1968) St. Louis Bombers (NBA) (1946–1950) St. Louis Stars (NASL) (1974) Spirits of St. Louis (ABA) (1974–1976) St. Louis Steamers (MISL) (1979–1988) St. Louis Storm (MISL) (1989–1992) St. Louis Ambush (NPSL) (1992–1994) St. Louis Vipers (RHI) (1993–1994) Saint Louis Billikens men's basketball team (1968–1971, 1975–1976, 1978–1982, and 1991–1994) Saint Louis Billikens hockey team (1970–1979)

St. Louis Arena (known as the Checkerdome from 1977 to 1983) was an indoor arena located in St. Louis, Missouri, that stood from 1929 to 1999. It was home to the St. Louis Blues and various other sports franchises. The Arena was located directly across I-64 from Forest Park's Aviation Field.

The Arena was the site of conventions, concerts, political rallies, horse shows, circuses, boxing matches, Roller Derby competitions, indoor soccer matches, the 1973 and 1978 NCAA men's basketball Final Four, the NCAA Men's Midwest Regional finals in 1982, 1984, and 1993, the 1992-94 Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament, and the 1975 NCAA Frozen Four ice hockey finals.

History

The building comes to life

At the conclusion of the 1904 World's Fair, St. Louis ended its long tradition of annually hosting large indoor agriculture and horse shows. The city tore down its huge St. Louis Exposition and Music Hall and built the St. Louis Coliseum which was aimed at individual events such as boxing matches.

In 1928 the National Dairy Show offered the city the opportunity to become the permanent location for its annual two-week meeting of dairymen and their prize animals. With no public funds available, a group of businessmen raised private funding for what was projected as a $2 million building. The National Exposition Company in charge of the project hired Gustel R. Kiewitt as architect and the Boaz-Kiel Construction Company as general contractor.

Kiewit’s design called for a lamella roof supported by 20 cantilever steel trusses, eliminating the need for view-obscuring internal support pillars. The lamella design consisted of Douglas fir ribs, 3.75 inches thick, 17.5 inches wide and 15 feet long, fitted together diagonally and giving the appearance of fish scales. The huge structure was completed in 1929, just over a year after construction began. At 476 feet long and 276 feet wide, it was behind only Madison Square Garden as the largest indoor entertainment space in the country. A 13-story building could have been erected inside of it.

The Arena was not well-maintained after the 1940s, and its roof was damaged by a February 1959 tornado. After repairs, it was re-opened as the home of the Central Hockey League's St. Louis Braves, a Chicago Black Hawks farm team. The renovations included the removal of the fencing that enforced segregation, dating back to the time of the St. Louis Eagles.^[3]

In the 1973 NCAA Basketball Final, the UCLA Bruins and legendary Coach John Wooden defeated Memphis 87-66, behind 44 points from Bill Walton who went 21 of 22 from the floor. Over 19,000 were in attendance at the Arena.^[4]

On February 13, 1974 the St. Louis Stars played host to the Red Army team at the Arena in the final match of Russian squad's three city indoor soccer tour of North America. Attendance for the match was 12,241.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

In the 1978 NCAA Basketball Final, the Kentucky Wildcats and Coach Joe B. Hall defeated Duke 94-88 led by the 41-point effort of Jack Givens.^[9]

From 1980 - 1993, St. Louis Arena was the site of the Braggin' Rights basketball game played between the University of Missouri and the University of Illinois.

Spirits of St. Louis - ABA Era (1974–76)

After the 1968 departure of the NBA's St. Louis Hawks, the Spirits of St. Louis brought professional basketball back to St. Louis when the Carolina Cougars franchise relocated to St. Louis. The Spirits played in the Arena for the final two seasons of the American Basketball Association (ABA), 1974–75 and 1975-76.^[10] Their announcer on KMOX radio was a young Bob Costas.^[11] Young players such as Steve Jones ("Snapper," now a TV analyst), Marvin Barnes ("Bad News), Maurice Lucas and Moses Malone all played for the Spirits during their tenure at the Arena. The team was not included in the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, when the Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and New York Nets joined the NBA. The Spirits and the Kentucky Colonels were disbanded.^[12] Spirits owners Ozzie and Daniel Silna pulled off a coup in their dissolution agreement when the ABA-NBA merger was finalized. The Silna's negotiated to receive a portion of TV monies in perpetuity, a deal that has netted them over $250 million, with hundreds of millions more possibly on the horizon.^[13]

The St. Louis Blues era (1967–1994)

By the time the NHL's St. Louis Blues began playing at the Arena in 1967, it had fallen into such poor condition that it had to be heavily renovated in time for the 1967-68 season. As a condition of getting the expansion franchise, Blues owner Sid Salomon Jr. purchased the Arena from the Chicago Black Hawks, and spent several million dollars renovating the building and adding some 3,000 seats to bring the total to almost 15,000. It never stopped being renovated from that day on, and held almost 20,000 seats by the time the Blues left the Arena in 1994. Many fans considered its sight lines the best of any arena in the league, which is remarkable considering that it was not originally built for hockey. It was also known as one of the loudest arenas in the league.

In 1977, the Arena and the Blues were purchased by Ralston Purina, which rechristened the building the Checkerdome after the company's checkerboard logo. By 1983, the cereal and pet food corporation had lost interest in the Blues and the Arena, and forfeited the team to the league. The team was nearly moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan before it was purchased by Harry Ornest, a Los Angeles-based businessman, who promptly returned the Arena to its original name.

After the Blues moved to their new home at Kiel Center during the off season of 1994, the final event at the St. Louis Arena was a concert by Christian artist Carman Licciardello.^[14]

Closure and demolition (1994–1999)

St. Louis Arena on February 27, 1999, the day of its controlled demolition

As a condition for the private financing of the demolition of city-owned Kiel Auditorium and the construction of privately owned Kiel Center (now the Scottrade Center) on the same Downtown site, local business group Civic Progress, Inc. insisted that the Dogtown-neighborhood Arena not be allowed to compete with Kiel Center for any events, while the insurance burden for the building was left with the City of St. Louis. With no income allowed for the Arena while insurance expenses continued, the building sat vacant while pressure built on the city government to either make it revenue-producing (essentially impossible under the Civic Progress-imposed non-competitive clause) or raze it. The arena remained vacant for nearly five years.

Public opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of saving "the Old Barn" as it was affectionately nicknamed. When local artist Bob Cassilly (founder of the private, non-profit City Museum) approached the city government with a $200,000 downpayment toward purchasing the building, Civic Progress pressured the city government to hurriedly demolish it, which they did, over general public objection, through a controlled implosion on February 27, 1999.

The Arena site today

A business/residential development now occupies the land that the St. Louis Arena called home, including the following:

Two apartment buildings featuring loft-style units
A Hampton Inn hotel
1001 Highlands Plaza Drive West, an office building home to—among other businesses—the St. Louis group of iHeartMedia's radio stations (KSLZ, KMJM-FM, KBWX, KATZ, KLOU, and KSD). A grass plaza, with an oval grass section surrounded by concrete sidewalks now sits at 1001 Highlands Plaza Drive West at the location where the original arena stood.

The Krieger's Sports Grill on the site closed in early 2008 and subsequently reopened as "The Highlander Pub & Grill" in September 2008.

Sports teams

Sports teams that called the Arena home include:

St. Louis Flyers of the AHA and AHL (1929–1953)
St. Louis Eagles of the NHL (1934–1935)
Chicago Black Hawks of the NHL (occasional use, 1953–1959)
St. Louis Braves of the CHL (1963–1967)
St. Louis Blues of the NHL (1967–1994)
St. Louis Hawks of the NBA (occasional use, 1955–1968)
St. Louis Stars of the NASL (one game, 1974)
Spirits of St. Louis of the ABA (1974–1976)
St. Louis Steamers of the MISL (1979–1988)
St. Louis Storm of the MISL (1989–1992)
St. Louis Ambush of the NPSL (1992–1994)
Saint Louis University basketball team (1968–1971, 1975–1976, 1978–1982 and 1991–1994)
Saint Louis University hockey team (1970–1979)
St. Louis Vipers of RHI (1993–1994)

Concerts

Led Zeppelin performed a single sold-out show on April 15, 1977 at the St. Louis Arena as part of their final North American tour.
Michael Jackson performed two sold–out shows in front of 36.000 people at St. Louis Arena, during his Bad World Tour on March 12 and 13, 1988.
ZZ Top performed at St. Louis Arena for their Recycler World Tour on November 7 and 8, 1990.

References

Finnigan, Joan (1992). Old Scores, New Goals: The Story of the Ottawa Senators. Quarry Press. ISBN 1-55082-041-9.

1 2 http://hockey.ballparks.com/NHL/St.LouisBlues/oldindex.htm
↑ "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
↑ Former Eagles player Frank Finnigan recalls the fencing while he played there in [Finnigan], pg. 123.
↑ http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/performance.html
↑ https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19740214&id=UAQqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6CgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7404,1627357
↑ http://www.nasljerseys.com/Friendlies/Teams/StarsStl%20Friendlies.htm
↑ http://www.soccermadeinstlouis.com/Soccer_Made_in_St._Louis/Statistics/Entries/2013/11/18_International_Matches_in_St._Louis_%28updated%29.html
↑ http://soccerstats.us/teams/red-army/
↑ http://www.databasesports.com/ncaab/tourney.htm?yr=1978
↑ http://www.remembertheaba.com/Spirits-of-St-Louis.html
↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=St._Louis_Arena&action=edit&section=2
↑ http://www.remembertheaba.com/TeamMaterial/StLouisMaterial/MavsCougarsSpiritsYearly.html
↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/sports/basketball/former-aba-owners-ozzie-and-daniel-silna-earn-millions-from-nba.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
↑ http://www.stlmedia.net/sonderman/september/09_02hist.pdf

Preceded by first arena	Home of the St. Louis Blues 1967 – 1994	Succeeded by Kiel Center
Preceded by Boston Garden Boston, Massachusetts	Host of the Frozen Four 1975	Succeeded by University of Denver Arena Denver, Colorado
Preceded by Sports Arena The Omni	NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament Finals Venue 1973 1978	Succeeded by Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center
Preceded by Montreal Forum Hartford Civic Center	Host of the NHL All-Star Game 1970 1988	Succeeded by Boston Garden Northlands Coliseum
Preceded by Milwaukee Arena	Occasional Home of the St. Louis Hawks 1955 – 1968	Succeeded by Alexander Memorial Coliseum
Preceded by Ottawa Auditorium	Home of the St. Louis Eagles 1934 – 1935	Succeeded by last arena

American Basketball Association seasons

Seasons	1967–68 1968–69 1969–70 1970–71 1971–72 1972–73 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76

Playoffs	1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976

All-Star Games	1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976

Champions Awards and honors ABA–NBA merger (1976 ABA Dispersal Draft)

American Basketball Association teams

Anaheim Amigos/Los Angeles Stars (1967–1970) Baltimore Claws (1975) Carolina Cougars (1969–1974) Dallas Chaparrals/Texas Chaparrals (1967–1973) Denver Rockets/Denver Nuggets (1967–1976) Houston Mavericks (1967–1969) Indiana Pacers (1967–1976) Kentucky Colonels (1967–1976) Memphis Pros/Memphis Tams/Memphis Sounds (1970–1975) Miami Floridians/The Floridians (1968–1972) Minnesota Muskies (1967–1968) Minnesota Pipers (1968–1969) New Jersey Americans/New York Nets (1967–1976) New Orleans Buccaneers (1967–1970) Oakland Oaks (1967–1969) Pittsburgh Pipers/Condors (1967–1968; 1969–1972) San Antonio Spurs (1973–1976) San Diego Conquistadors/Sails (1972–1975) Spirits of St. Louis (1974–1976) Utah Stars (1970–1975) Virginia Squires (1970–1976) Washington Caps (1969–1970)

ABA All-Time Team

American Basketball Association champions

1967–68 Pittsburgh Pipers 1968–69 Oakland Oaks 1969–70 Indiana Pacers 1970–71 Utah Stars 1971–72 Indiana Pacers 1972–73 Indiana Pacers 1973–74 New York Nets 1974–75 Kentucky Colonels 1975–76 New York Nets

St. Louis Blues

Founded in 1967 Based in St. Louis, Missouri

Franchise	Team General managers Coaches Players Captains Draft picks Seasons Current season

History	1967 expansion Expansion Draft Records Award winners

Personnel	Owner(s) SLB Acquisition Holdings LLC (Tom Stillman, chairman) General manager Doug Armstrong Head coach Ken Hitchcock Team captain David Backes Current roster

Arenas	St. Louis Arena Scottrade Center

Rivalries	Chicago Blackhawks

Affiliates	AHL Chicago Wolves

General managers	Patrick Bowman Abel Catto Ehman Ball Francis Caron Keenan Caron Pleau Armstrong

Head coaches	Patrick Bowman Arbour Bowman Abel McCreary, Sr. Arbour Talbot Angotti Patrick Young Patrick Boivin Francis Boivin Plager Berenson Francis Plager Demers Martin Sutter Plager Berry Keenan Roberts Quenneville Kitchen Murray Payne Hitchcock

Media	TV FS Midwest Radio KMOX Newsradio (1120 AM)

Culture and lore	The Monday Night Miracle Louie the Bear Saint Louis Blues (song) "When the Blues Go Marching In" Dan Kelly 2017 NHL Winter Classic

Saint Louis Billikens men's basketball

Venues	First Regiment Armory (1920–1925) West Pine Gym (1925–1945) Kiel Auditorium (1945–1968; 1973–1978; 1982–1991) St. Louis Arena (1968–1973; 1978–1982; 1991–1994) Scottrade Center (1994–2008) Chaifetz Arena (2008–present)

Culture & lore	History

People	Head coaches Retired jerseys

Seasons	1915–16 1916–17 1917–18 1918–19 1919–20 1920–21 1921–22 1922–23 1923–24 1924–25 1925–26 1926–27 1927–28 1928–29 1929–30 1930–31 1931–32 1932–33 1933–34 1934–35 1935–36 1936–37 1937–38 1938–39 1939–40 1940–41 1941–42 1942–43 1943–44 1944–45 1945–46 1946–47 1947–48 1948–49 1949–50 1950–51 1951–52 1952–53 1953–54 1954–55 1955–56 1956–57 1957–58 1958–59 1959–60 1960–61 1961–62 1962–63 1963–64 1964–65 1965–66 1966–67 1967–68 1968–69 1969–70 1970–71 1971–72 1972–73 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–00 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16

Atlanta Hawks

Founded in 1946 Formerly the Tri-Cities Blackhawks (1946–1951); played in Milwaukee (1951–1955) and St. Louis (1955–1968) Based in Atlanta, Georgia

Franchise	Franchise All-time roster Draft history Seasons Head coaches Current season

Arenas	Wharton Field House Milwaukee Arena Kiel Auditorium St. Louis Arena Alexander Memorial Coliseum Omni Coliseum Lakefront Arena Georgia Dome Philips Arena

D-League affiliate	None

NBA Championships (1)	1958

Conference Championships (4)	1957 1958 1960 1961

Retired jerseys	9 17 21 23 55

Lore	The Human Highlight Film Pistol Pete Phantom Buzzer Game

Media	TV Peachtree TV FS South Fox Sports Southeast Radio 790 The Zone Announcers Bob Rathbun Dominique Wilkins Steve Holman

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