The Hockey Hall of Fame is really cool. I suggest you go there the next time you’re in Toronto. Hockey fans can get lost there, mesmerized by the unbelievable amount of hockey history. And today, Buffalo entered its own artifacts into eternal hockey heaven to be seen by countless hockey fans.
The donation includes blueprints from the original design, several concrete stones from the Aud’s foundation, and the centerpiece of it all: two seats taken directly from the famous nosebleed orange section, complete with gum stuck underneath.
(The table containing the donation. The white sheets are blueprints of the Aud, concrete pieces from the foundation, and orange nosebleed seats.)
“I’m from Burlington, and I used to come to games in Buffalo. The Aud is part of my upbringing,” said Phil Pritchard, vice-president and curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Pritchard is also known as “The Keeper Of The Cup,” and can be seen presenting the Stanley Cup to the winner of the series every year.
(Hockey Hall of Fame vice president, curator, and “Keeper Of The Cup” Phil Pritchard addresses Buffalo media.)
The Hockey Hall of Fame preserves important hockey artifacts whenever possible. Their building contains old sticks, hockey masks, nets, pucks, and other equipment. They own tons of memorbilia from the Original 6 teams famous arenas (Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, New York, Boston, and Detroit), but according to Pritchard, Buffalo is the first team of the modern era to make such a donation to the Hall.
(Mayor Brown with Hall of Fame and ECHDC representatives, with donation in the foreground.)
“Preserving sports history is special for us,” Pritchard said, “from a museum standpoint we’re glad to preserve anything.”
The seats are being kept in their current state, after a bit of dusting and touching up, of course. Even the gum on the underside of the seat will remain, a strange but very original memorial to the people that once sat in the nosebleeds–where the real fans watched games—and cheered for the Sabres.
The Aud seats will be available for viewing beginning at the start of the 2009-2010 season.