The WHL Arena Guide - Bismarck Civic Center, Estevan Bruins

Sometimes, arenas previously unknown to me are hiding in plain sight. I was tipped off that the Estevan Bruins may have played a handful of games at the Bismarck Civic Center by WHL History on Twitter, and in searching the internet for "Estevan Bruins Bismarck" I discovered... the team's own website, which confirmed that they played as many as half a dozen home games there over their last two seasons in southern Saskatchewan.

The Bismarck Civic Center was new then, a 10,100 seat arena five times the size of their main rink in Estevan, and the drive is a little under four hours, which by prairie standards isn't terrible. The team was apparently successful in Bismarck, but with the WHL already moving into larger and larger markets, a small town like Estevan couldn't survive, and the franchise was transferred to New Westminster in 1971.

The arena was renamed the Bismarck Event Center in 2014, and has been extensively renovated and maintained to the point there's no reason they couldn't host a major junior team again in the future, though the city is right on the line between making more sense for the WHL versus the USHL. The current top level of hockey in Bismarck is an NAHL team, the Bobcats, though they play at a 1,300 seat community rink elsewhere in town. There is no anchor tenant at the moment, but there appears to be a surprisingly busy concert calendar between the rink and the adjacent theatre.