ACHA Hockey - Amherst Northtown Center facilities improvements

The Amherst Northtown Center, home of the University at Buffalo Bulls ACHA teams, will be doing quite a bit of work on their feature rink this summer. The UB home rink is due to receive over $300,000.00 worth of improvements.

Among the upgrades will be new boards, seamless glass, bigger player benches, and improvements to the penalty boxes and ice. With the upgrades ACHA coach of the year nominee Sal Valvo believes that the Buffalo will be hosting games on a rink which will "put us(UB) in some of the top levels of rinks in the ACHA"

In addition to the surface improvements the broadcast infrastructure will also bee getting an upgrade. The "press box" will be modified for better radio, and video coverage. This past season Buffalo home games were broadcast through WRUB and for a price some games were shown online via Fasthockey. The internet speed upgrade in particular will improve both platforms.

The upgrades will be completed before the season kicks off in September.

Time to beat a dead horse...

The one big legitimate knock on the Northtown Center as a possible as a *possible* home for an NCAA division one team was the quality of the playing surface and support infrastructure. The boards being replaced had no real give near the base, or so I've been told, this increases the risk of injury.

The seamless glass is another long overdue improvement.

It's still on the smallish side for an NCAA arena but at 1,400 seats it would be bigger than 10 of the current division one arenas and would top the average attendance of 13 NCAA clubs.

No, this is not the dawn of UB's reemergence as an NCAA hockey program, Director White made it clear that hockey is not on his radar. It's nice to know though that within spitting distance of campus there is a place waiting for Buffalo to make the move.