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New Glass And Boards Coming To Kelley Rink This Fall

Minor tweak promises to improve game day experience for BC hockey fans

By Joseph Gravellese
The Heights

While it's admittedly news that very few people are actually excited about, yesterday's little tidbit from BC hockey's Twitter account promises to make a subtle but very real difference in the game day experience for fans at hockey games this year: new glass and boards will be installed at Kelley Rink for the upcoming season.

Yesterday morning, the @BCHockeyNews twitter account posted about the arrival of new boards:

The boards look nice, neat and clean, but it led to an important question for me: would new boards mean replacing the aging, scuffed, ugly old glass that's rung around Kelley Rink for at least 15 years?

I know this seems like a small thing, but it's been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. If the new glass is the high quality, seamless, thin stuff that BU and some of other new rinks have, it will enhance the fan experience at Conte Forum during hockey season - especially for students and others who sit down low right behind the glass. Why, you ask?

1) The old glass was obviously very scuffed up and marked up, hurting visibility of the game for anyone sitting behind it.

2) It also was not the new "seamless" glass, which hurt visibility as well:

vs. the new stuff:

3. The glass was very thick, which helps contribute (it's not the only factor, but it's a part of it) to the atmosphere problem in Conte's student sections - making it even more impossible for noise to travel across the rink.

I asked years ago why BC has never replaced the glass and the reasoning I got was that the new, "modern" glass would not work with our boards, which made sense. So now that all are being replaced, I'm hopeful that we'll see some glimmering new glass at the rink this fall.

Props to the administration for making this subtle change. While it won't change the fact that Conte is a sterile, aging facility that was not particularly great even when it was new, this will be the latest in a series of small upgrades that have improved the fan experience and made it a more enjoyable place to watch a game.

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