Portland Winterhawks
Arena Name: Rose Garden
Capacity: 18,280
Built: 1995
Address: 1 N Center Ct St, Portland, OR 97227
Ice Surface Size: Regulation
Last Game: 2020
Rose Garden
What Was the Arena Like?
Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum is one of the few arenas entered on the US Register of Historic Places – it is a triumph of Mid-Century Modernist architecture. But it only holds just under 13,000 people, and by the standards of the NBA of the 1990’s, that was no longer enough. The Portland Trail Blazers moved across the street to the new Rose Garden (now the Moda Center) in 1995, a full-sized and up-to-date arena, and in some cities, it would have been curtains for the old arena. But Portland, thankfully, kept the Coliseum open, and from 1995 to 2020, the Winterhawks played a split schedule, with most of their games (along with all their banners and team history) on display at the Coliseum, and about a quarter to a third of their games each year at the big rink.
I’ve only been outside of the Moda Center, but my friend Steve McLean has been to a game, and he reports that the arena is luxurious, with fully padded seats and a decent atmosphere for WHL games by the standards of an NBA-sized arena. In 2021, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Winterhawks’ new owners decided to consolidate their operations in one building, and moved permanently back to the Coliseum. No one knew it at the time, but the last Winterhawks game of the abandoned 2019-20 season was the last game the team would play there. One expects that the Winterhawks may well still play odd games there into the future, but after twenty-six years, the Moda Center can now be considered a former WHL building.
Inside the Rose Garden
What's It Used for Today?
Moda Center, as it's now known, remains home to the Portland Trail Blazers NBA team. A local told me when I visited Portland in 2024 that the ice plant at the Rose Garden is no longer operational, so even if the Winterhawks wanted to play there again, it would be a challenge.
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Last Revised: October 28, 2024