Roaming The Rinks

December 22, 2007 - Wheeling, West Virginia

Sweet!  A roadtrip where I get to see my hometown Elmira Jackals in action.  Wheeling sits in the 10 mile wide sliver of land between my home state of Pennsylvania, and Ohio.  This 30 year old arena sits on the banks of the mighty Ohio, and I do mean on the banks of the river as you could easily throw a stone into the river from the front door of the arena.  In fact as I was purchasing my ticket at the box office window on the outside of the building a couple hours before game time I saw a river barge pushing a load of coal up the river.  The setting of the arena is really neat, and yet still only about 5 blocks off the interstate.  Parking is available on the street, as well as several paid lots.  I ended up in the garage next door for $3 and had no problem whatsoever getting out after the game.

My upper level ticket set me back $13.75, but ended up being a good seat near center ice.  Immediately upon entering the front door of the arena you are met by the souvenir area.  It is not really a storefront or stand, but rather a bunch of items hung on racks and shelves in the lobby itself. This would be a good place to pick up one of the coolest jerseys in all of hockey as I really like the Nailers logo, but as a ECHL rival I have to pass on that one. The staff was very friendly, with the program seller wishing my team good luck when he saw my Jackals jersey.  After buying my souvenir puck and program I took a stroll around the concourse. The concourse is wide and goes 3/4 of the way around the arena, with the end near the locker rooms being blocked off.  The hallway is filled with local memoribilia of Ohio Valley sports and other interest.  These displays included tributes to football great Lou Groza and basketball star "Hondo" John Havlicek.  Interestingly the whole region was taken into consideration for the displays, including nearby Ohio and Pennsylvania, not just West Virginia.  There are various food and drink stands on the concourse, which is behind the seating area.  Upon entering the seating area you quickly notice the bright orange seats, which are on the 4 sides of the arena, with lots of dead space in the corners.  The building itself does not appear to have been built solely for hockey as the sides are wider than the rink surface, with temporary seating on the lower ends, yet the ice surface itself is only 185 feet in length.  Thats OK though as I like the smaller ice surfaces.  The sight lines are good from all locations.  The crowd for tonight's game was rather sparse at a little over half full for the almost 5500 seat arena.  Although this region is still pretty much in Steeler country there seemed to be good support for hockey.  According to the Nailers website the franchise moved to Wheeling in 1992 after moving from Winston-Salem.   Wheeling definitely seems like a blue collar town with focus on manufacturing, etc, and the fans really seem partial to rough and tough hockey as can be expected.  In the park area between the arena and the river is a statue to a former UAW union leader, thus giving proof to the working class nature of the town.

The game presentation itself was decent, with the typical lights-out introduction of the home team.  There were 2 different mascots, neither of which seemed to really fit the theme of the team.   They do have the remote control blimp dropping prizes into the crowd at intermission, and the crowd seemed to have a good time.  The PA and song choice during stoppages seemed rather outdated and not that exciting.  During play the lighting in the seating area is turned way down, so you are pretty much sitting in the dark. They did have a chuck-a-puck contest, which they called "chuck a pepperoni" as the pucks were red and orange, and the target a pizza.  The fans do seem frustrated with their team however as there were quite a few boos directed toward the Nailers as the Jackals controlled the play for the whole game.  There were also repeated cries to fire the coach.  To my enjoyment there was a fight in the game between little brother Aaron Boogaard, and the Jackals Bobby Robins.  Robins handled the much bigger Junior Boogey Man, so that also gave the crowd little to chear about.   The Jackals took the win 4-2, yet the game was not that close as the Nailers scored with no time left in the third.  The way the seating is set up on the lower seating area the visiting team has to walk by the bar area in the lower corner, and it was funny watching the drunk locals taunting the players, with no barrier in between as they entered and left the ice.  They do need to change the scoreclock setup as the main overhead scoreboard has only room for 1 penalty for each team, making it almost worthless for tracking powerplay time.  There is a secondary clock on the wall in one corner which is fully functional for tracking penalties though.  I liked the rink in Wheeling quite a bit, and was happy to be able to watch the Jackals on the road without so much as a peep from opposing fans. 

Other information about the Wheeling Nailers is available at : Nailers home

Other information about WesBanco Arens is available at : Venue Home