The Joe

[BBFran]

This place feels 75 years old. It's a relic. Yet it was built in. '79. It seems like there has been no maintenance done since then. The seats are horrible, the steps are perilous, the concourses have 19" SD tvs. The restrooms are so utilitarian they still have troughs. It's probably a good thing the crowds are so small because I can't imagine what it must feel like to put 20k in here.

I can't even describe how much nicer and better modernized the Arena is. Walking in again today I couldn't help but think how much better this tournament would be there, the Resch, the Nutter...

[nickpanther]

the arena is much older than the Joe but its been modernized, and kept up. otherwise it would look like the Joe, or worse.

[Pounce Needs Pals]

I would think in 2018 it will be torn down.

[BBFran]

3 years too late.

[Pantherholic]

New arena opens in 2017. Given the issues the city has had in the last decade or so, I'm not surprised the arena is old/outdated. I'm assuming the place was built like the Bradley Center in that it was built for the present.

[BBFran]

Even though the BC was built only ten years later it feels 40 years newer. The Joe must have been built on the cheap. It's setting is miserable too. It's about as unattractive a place, inside and out, as you could imagine.

Btw, Weirdly, the number of people working the place -- security, ushers, concessions -- was wildly out of scale to the crowd.

I went this year because my son is still living in the Detroit area. He's leaving in a couple weeks. I can't imagine going back to this next year. It's just an ugly trip to a really ugly facility. They are clearly not putting a dime into it and by next year it can only be worse, which is a little scary. Once the tournament moves to the new building I'll think about it again.

What the HL should really do is fire the commissioner and give the ADs a re-vote to jettison this miserable change and go back to what worked.