ENSHRINEMENT
Aud taking its seat in Hockey Hall of Fame
The blue stickers on the two orange seats saved from Memorial Auditorium revealed their next destination: The Hockey Hall of Fame.
Representatives from the Toronto hall were outside the Aud on Tuesday to accept the metal seats, as demolition continued on the onetime local sports mecca.
The Aud, which opened in 1940 and was home to the Buffalo Sabres and the Buffalo Bisons of the American Hockey League, will be the first arena memorialized in the Hockey Hall of Fame other than the league’s original six teams.
“For hockey fans, it’s truly one of the great arenas,” said Philip Pritchard, a Hall of Fame curator and a frequent visitor to the Aud when he was growing up in Burlington, Ont.
“I sat there all the time, all the time,” Pritchard said. “The orange seats were known as ‘nose bleeds,’ so it’s neat to get the orange in. True fans who loved the game and loved the Sabres were always up there.”
Also going to the Hockey Hall of Fame from the Aud are 1939 floor plans and bricks from the building. The exhibit probably will be on display probably starting in the fall, Pritchard said.
Mayor Byron W. Brown hailed the Hockey Hall of Fame inclusion and said Buffalonians can expect their own Aud memorial in Buffalo.
“This is a real honor, because not every community gets to have memorabilia from its former stadium in the Hockey Hall of Fame. “It’s another way to keep the memory of Memorial Auditorium alive and to ease the pain of the progress moving forward.”
Brown said an earlier seat auction will provide funds to create a “fitting tribute to the Aud in Buffalo” near its current site. He said those plans are being worked out with the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp.
As the mayor and hall officials posed for photographs, Tom Collins, a longtime South Buffalonian now living in West Seneca, watched with mixed emotions as excavators moved dirt at the site.
“It’s progress, and you hate to see the old building go. A lot of fond memories here,” said Collins, a Sabres season-ticket holder for many years who went to the Aud from not long after it opened until it closed.
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