Before the Terriers met their Hockey East rivals, Providence, in the National Championship, they had one stop: the highly anticipated Hobey Baker Award Ceremony.
Jack Eichel, then a freshman forward, was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award – an honor he would eventually win. Presented annually, the Hobey Baker Award honors the most outstanding player in NCAA Division I men’s ice hockey and celebrates exceptional skill, sportsmanship and character.
Each year, the Hobey Baker Award Ceremony is held at a location associated with the Frozen Four host city. In 2015 it was performed at Matthews Arena in Boston.
Bernie Corbett, BU’s play-by-play announcer for the past 40 years, was master of ceremonies at the 2015 Hobey Baker Ceremony, held under the roof that shaped his lifelong passion for hockey.
“I got there and said, ‘What an honor it is to be in a building where my father played goalie for Stoneham High in 1949, where my mother attended the first Beanpot as a BU student in 1952, and where I saw my first BU hockey game on November 25, 1967,’” Corbett recalled.
Matthews Arena – originally known as the Boston Arena – was built in 1910. Recognized as the world’s oldest multi-purpose athletic facility still in use, it has hosted countless sports teams, concerts and political rallies.
Over the years, presidents of the United States, including John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt, have addressed crowds there. Legendary artists such as The Doors, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes and Bob Dylan filled the room with music.
Yet the legacy of Matthews Arena is the one most deeply rooted in Boston sports. As the city’s first sports venue, the first games were played here by both the Boston Celtics and the Bruins.
But long before professional sports took center stage, colleges and high schools in Boston and surrounding cities laid claim to the rink, making it a cornerstone of the region’s athletics community.
“Everyone played there,” Corbett explained.
The Greater Boston Interscholastic was the first high school hockey league in America. They played at Matthews Arena, according to Corbett.
BU played its first game there in 1917 against Boston College. The Terriers remained in Matthews Arena until 1971, when Walter Brown Arena opened.
BC also started its hockey history there and played at Matthews until 1965. That year the Eagles moved to McHugh Forum, located on the same site where Conte Forum now stands.
Harvard skated at Matthews until 1956, when the university opened the old Watson Rink. Today, Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center is located on the same grounds.
Northeastern’s hockey program has been linked to Matthews since its inception. Since 1930, every home game in Northeastern hockey history has been played there, making Matthews Arena inextricably linked to the Huskies’ identity.
“You had a lot of local guys on all those teams, and routinely you had teammates who ended up playing against each other,” Corbett said.
The four Boston schools regularly played doubleheaders at Matthews, and from that tradition came the idea of turning those matchups into a tournament: the Beanpot.
The Beanpot has since grown into one of the biggest tournaments in college hockey. Annually, it brings national recognition to Boston school hockey teams and is a hallmark of Boston sports culture.
That sense of community around the arena extended beyond the games themselves and shaped the childhoods of countless local children who grew up in its shadow.
“It looked like a daycare,” Corbett recalled. “There would be kids hanging out there at the rink. A lot of kids tell the same stories and grow up in the arena.”
Fittingly, BU and Northeastern will face off on Saturday in the last game ever played on the ice of Matthews Arena. Both programs hold the distinction of having the longest tenure of any sports team under their historic roof.
Corbett routinely begins his broadcasts that take place in Matthews with “welcome back to Matthews Arena, the ancestral home of BU hockey,” so both teams claim the rink.
Corbett described the arena’s final chapter as “quite overwhelming.” For more than a century, Boston’s hockey community has gathered there – in what he calls “the Mecca,” “the absolute epicenter” and “the hub” of Boston hockey.
Northeastern, BU and Hockey East alumni will join a sold-out crowd Saturday to celebrate the closure of the oldest operating rink.
“People have taken notice,” Corbett said. “This is the end and everyone wants to be there.”
For many, the building represents much more than just an ice skating rink; it’s a place where rivalries were born, championships were won and centuries-old memories were made.
Matthew’s closure marks the end of an era in Boston’s hockey history, but also serves as a reminder of the arena’s enduring legacy as a foundation of the city’s sports culture.
“We talk about it all the time, but we should all talk about it. I can give you so many examples. The hockey community is different – it’s special,” Corbett said.
Matthews has been a thread for a century, connecting personal memories to the broader history of hockey in Boston and its community.
“My story is a similar story to literally generations,” Corbett said. “That’s why this will resonate, and it resonates so much for generations of hockey people.”
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