McNichols Sports Arena
Denver's former home of the Nuggets and Avalanche.
McNichols Sports Arena was a multi-purpose indoor arena in Denver, Colorado, United States, completed in 1975 at a cost of $16 million. It seated 16,061 for hockey and 17,171 for basketball. The arena was located adjacent to Mile High Stadium.
Quick Facts
- Nickname
- Big Mac
- Address
- 1635 Bryant Street
- Location
- Denver, Colorado, U.S.
- Groundbreaking
- August 8, 1973
- Opened
- August 22, 1975
- Renovated
- 1986
- Closed
- September 29, 1999
- Demolished
- 2000
Facts from the source article.
Sports use
The arena was named for William H. McNichols Jr., Denver’s mayor from 1968 to 1983, a choice that sparked a minor controversy since he was still in office. A 1986 upgrade added 27 luxury suites and replaced the original Stewart-Warner end-zone scoreboards, which had color matrix screens, with new digits and color video screens from White Way Sign. For its entire run from 1975 to 1999, McNichols Sports Arena was the home of the Denver Nuggets, first in the ABA and later the NBA. It also housed several hockey teams: the Denver Spurs of the WHA for the 1975–76 season, the NHL’s Colorado Rockies from 1976 to 1982, the CHL’s Colorado Flames from 1982 to 1984, the IHL’s Denver Grizzlies from 1994 to 1995, and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche from 1995 to 1999. The Nuggets played their final game there on May 5, 1999, against the Houston Rockets, and the Avalanche played theirs on June 1, 1999, a playoff game versus the Dallas Stars. Although it was only 24 years old when torn down, the arena felt outdated: its concourse corridors were narrow and dim, the locker rooms and showers hadn’t been brought up to NBA or NHL standards, and it had just 27 luxury suites (compared to 200 or more in newer venues) with no club seating. Those shortcomings made it obsolete. After the Nuggets and Avalanche moved to the Pepsi Center (now Ball Arena), McNichols closed and was demolished in 2000 to make room for a parking lot around Empower Field at Mile High. The arena hosted the 1990 NCAA Final Four, where UNLV beat Duke, plus the 1996 West Regional semifinals and final, and first- and second-round NCAA tournament games in 1999. It also held the 1976 ABA All-Star Game—the last before the ABA-NBA merger—where the host Nuggets beat the ABA All-Stars, along with games 1, 2, and 5 of the 1976 ABA Finals and the 1984 NBA All-Star Game. In hockey, it hosted games 1 and 2 of the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals, where the Avalanche swept the Florida Panthers to give Denver its first major sports championship. And in 1993, it was the site of UFC 1, the very first Ultimate Fighting Championship event.
Concerts
McNichols Sports Arena opened with a Lawrence Welk concert on August 22, 1975. Heart performed their version of "Unchained Melody" there in 1980, a track that appeared on their double LP Greatest Hits/Live, which came out in November of that year. The Grateful Dead played the venue 13 times from 1977 to 1994. Their first appearance was October 9, 1977, as part of the Fall Southwest Tour. In 1979, rain forced the relocation of two scheduled Red Rocks shows—August 13 and August 14—to McNichols. The Dead returned for shows on July 13 and July 14, 1981, and again from December 12 through December 14, 1990. Performances on December 2 and December 3, 1992, marked the band’s first concerts of that year after a break. Their final three Colorado gigs took place on November 29, November 30, and December 1, 1994. Elvis Presley drew a sold-out crowd on April 23, 1976. Elton John played two consecutive nights, October 5 and October 6, 1975, during his "West of the Rockies" tour. Paul McCartney and Wings performed a single show on June 7, 1976. The Bee Gees took the stage on July 2, 1979, as part of their Spirits Having Flown Tour. Kiss appeared on November 4, 1979, during the Dynasty Tour—the last tour to include original drummer Peter Criss until 1996. Rolling Stones guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood performed as The New Barbarians at the arena in 1979. REO Speedwagon’s 1981 concert there became MTV’s first live broadcast. Electric Light Orchestra played on September 27, 1981, as part of the Time Tour. AC/DC performed at McNichols nine times between 1982 and 1996. On June 8, 1986, the arena hosted Amnesty International’s A Conspiracy of Hope Benefit Concert, headlined by U2 and Sting, with additional performances by Bryan Adams, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Joan Baez, and The Neville Brothers. Footage from two U2 concerts filmed at McNichols in November 1987, during the third leg of the Joshua Tree Tour, appeared in the half-live rockumentary Rattle and Hum. This included Bono’s "Fuck the revolution!" speech during "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Jethro Tull played the arena from 1976 to 1980. Def Leppard recorded a show there in February 1988, later releasing it as Live: In the Round, in Your Face.
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