January 18, 1978: The roof of the Hartford Civic Center collapses under the weight of snow. It ends up remaining closed for 2 years while it is repaired.
It could have been a lot worse. Not only did the collapse happen in the middle of the night, when there was the least likelihood of people being hurt or killed, but, just a few hours earlier, on the night of January 17, there was a game. The men's basketball team of the University of Connecticut (a.k.a. UConn) played the University of Massachusetts (a.k.a. UMass), and won, 56-49.
I don't have an attendance figure for that game, but the building's seating capacity was then 10,507. It could have been a death toll surpassing Pearl Harbor, or the as-yet-future 9/11.
Like a lot of the sports venues built in America in the 1960s and '70s, the Civic Center was not designed well. When the City of Hartford, the building's owner, investigated, it was found that the roof's supports were not strong enough. It wasn't one snowfall that did it, it was several over the course of 6 New England Winters, from the building's opening on January 9, 1975.
At that time, it became the home of the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association, who had previously played at the Boston Garden, the Boston Arena (now the Matthews Arena of Northeastern University), and the Eastern States Coliseum (a.k.a. the Big E), the longtime home of the American Hockey League's Springfield Indians, in nearby West Springfield, Massachusetts.
It also served as a home for UConn basketball, for games too large for the facility they had on their main campus of Storrs, the Hugh S. Greer Fieldhouse. The Harry A. Gampel Pavilion opened in 1990, and the Fieldhouse was converted into an indoor track facility. Even the NBA's Boston Celtics played a few "home games" there.
For 2 years, the UConn Huskies were restricted to on-campus games, and the Whalers moved 26 miles north to the Springfield Civic Center (now the MassMutual Center) in Massachusetts. Their temporary stay there included their being brought from the WHA into the NHL for the 1979-80 season, along with the Quebec Nordiques, the Winnipeg Jets and the Edmonton Oilers. This move to the established league also led the team to change their name, to the Hartford Whalers.
The Hartford Civic Center reopened on January 17, 1980, with a capacity of 14,750 for hockey, and 15,600 for basketball. This gave it more seats than the Boston Garden, and the Celtics resumed playing a few games a season there until the larger arena now known as the TD Garden opened in 1995. UConn's men's and women's basketball teams both became national powers, and use the building for their bigger games.
The Whalers continued to play there until 1997. New owner Peter Karmanos had wanted a bigger arena with more luxury boxes. He didn't get it. He was a multibillionaire from getting in on the computer industry early. He could have built 50 new arenas himself. But he wanted the taxpayers of the State of Connecticut to build it for him.
And so, he took the Whalers to North Carolina, renaming them the Carolina Hurricanes. First, they played the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons at the Greensboro Coliseum. In 1999, what's now named the PNC Arena opened in Raleigh, and the 'Canes were moved there.
In 1997, to take the Whalers' place, the New York Rangers moved their top farm team, the Binghamton Rangers, to the Civic Center, renaming them the Hartford Wolf Pack. In 2007, the building was renamed the XL Center. A 2014 renovation did as much as could be hoped for, but no NHL team, or ownership group looking to start an expansion team, has expressed interest in moving to Hartford unless a new arena is built. And it really isn't a big market, made smaller by the fact that the Rangers and the Boston Bruins cut into the market as well.
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January 18, 1978 was a Wednesday. There were 3 games scheduled to be played in the WHA that night, and 1 involved the Whalers. But it was on the road, so it went on as scheduled:
* The New England Whalers, lost to the Edmonton Oilers, 1-0 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.
* The Birmingham Bulls beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 3-0 at the Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham. (now the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex).
* And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-1 at the Winnipeg Arena.
There were 6 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-0 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
* The New York Islanders beat the Minnesota North Stars, 5-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.
* The Atlanta Flames beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 1-0 at The Omni in Atlanta.
* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Cleveland Barons, 7-4 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio. The Barons and the North Stars, both on the verge of bankruptcy, were merged at the end of the season, with the North Stars remaining in operation.
* The Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Rockies played to a tie, 4-4 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. This would be the only season that the NHL version of the Rockies made the Playoffs. In 1982, they moved, becoming the New Jersey Devils.
* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Washington Capitals, 5-2 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins, the Buffalo Sabres, the Philadelphia Flyers, the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.
There were 8 games played in the NBA:
* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Portland Trail Blazers, 127-101 at the Rutgers Athletic Center (now the Jersey Mike's Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 130-116 at the Boston Garden. Sidney Wicks had 35 points and 15 rebounds for the C's.
* The New Orleans Jazz beat the Atlanta Hawks, 108-106 at The Omni in Atlanta. Pete Maravich scored 34 points off his former team.
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Buffalo Braves, 113-100 at Cob Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.
* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Indiana Pacers, 109-96 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.
* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Kansas City Kings, 126-106 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.
* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Houston Rockets, 106-104 at The Summit in Houston.
* The Golden State Warriors beat the Washington Bullets, 113-106 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.