Joe Louis Arena

"The Joe" redirects here. For the Canadian rapper, see Joe Gurba.

Joe Louis Arena
"The Joe"
Location	19 Steve Yzerman Drive, Detroit, Michigan 48226
Coordinates	42°19′31″N 83°3′5″W
Broke ground	May 16, 1977
Opened	December 12, 1979
Owner	City Of Detroit
Operator	Olympia Entertainment
Construction cost	$57 million ($180 million in 2013 dollars)
Architect	Smith, Hinchmen and Grylls Associates
General contractor	Barton Malow
Capacity	Ice hockey: 19,275 (1979–1996) 19,983 (1996–2000) 19,995 (2000–2001) 20,058 (2001–2003) 20,066 (2003–present) Basketball: 20,153 Professional wrestling: 18,735 Concerts: 21,666
Tenants
Detroit Red Wings (NHL) (1979–2015) Detroit Pistons (NBA) (1984–1985) Detroit Drive (AFL) (1988–1993) Detroit Compuware Ambassadors (OHL) (1991–1992) Detroit Junior Red Wings (OHL) (1992–1995) Detroit Rockers (NPSL) (1996–2001) Detroit Turbos (MILL) (1989–1994)

The electronic scoreboard at Joe Louis Arena, during a game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Los Angeles Kings on March 9, 2007

Inside Joe Louis Arena.

The retired numbers of former Detroit Red Wings players displayed at Joe Louis Arena.

Panorama of Joe Louis Arena in April 2008.

The Detroit Shock practice at Joe Louis Arena before Game 5 of the 2006 WNBA Finals.

Joe Louis Arena, nicknamed The Joe, is a hockey arena located in downtown Detroit, Michigan. It is the home of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League. Completed in 1979 at a cost of $57 million, the venue is named after boxer and former heavyweight champion Joe Louis, who grew up in Detroit. Only two other NHL arenas—Madison Square Garden in New York City and Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island—are without corporate sponsorship names. The fourth oldest NHL venue after the two named above and Rexall Place in Edmonton, Joe Louis Arena is owned by the city of Detroit, and operated by Olympia Entertainment, a subsidiary of Ilitch Holdings. JLA replaced Olympia Stadium. It sits adjacent to Cobo Hall on the bank of the Detroit River and is accessible through its own station on the Detroit People Mover.

Usage by the Red Wings

The Red Wings had played at the Olympia since 1927. However, the neighborhood around the Olympia went to seed after the 1967 riots. After two murders took place near the Olympia, Red Wings owner Bruce Norris seriously considered moving to a proposed arena in suburban Pontiac. However, the city of Detroit countered with a proposal for a new riverfront arena at one-third of the rent Pontiac was offering. The package also gave the Red Wings operational control of both the arena, nearby Cobo Arena and the nearby lots.

The Red Wings played their first game at Joe Louis Arena on December 27, 1979, hosting the St. Louis Blues. Later that first season it hosted the 32nd NHL All-Star Game on February 5, 1980, which was played before a then-NHL record crowd of 21,002. The event was made memorable when Gordie Howe of the Hartford Whalers was introduced on the Wales Conference line-up and received a ten-minute standing ovation. The 51-year-old Howe had played 25 years in Detroit and at the time was the NHL's all-time leading scorer. Joe Louis Arena was the site of the 1987 NHL Entry Draft, which marked the first NHL Entry Draft to be held in the United States.

The Red Wings have been very successful since the move to Joe Louis Arena, winning four Stanley Cup championships (with two of them, 1997 and 2002, taking place with the Cup clinching victory at home), and playing in two additional Stanley Cup Finals, in 1995 against the New Jersey Devils and in 2009 against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

A new television screen on the scoreboard was installed and debuted November 22, 2006, when the Red Wings played the Vancouver Canucks. That same day, the arena's West Entrance was named the "Gordie Howe Entrance" in honor of the legendary Red Wing player, and a bronze statue of Howe was placed inside the entrance. Those four LED video screens replaced four Sony JumboTron videowalls which had been installed in 1993, resulting in the relocation of the color matrixboards, which had originally been installed along with the scoreboard in 1990, to the corners of the fascia where they remain. The White Way Sign scoreboard, in turn, replaced an American Sign and Indicator scoreboard with a black-and-white matrix screen, similar to one at Cobo Arena, which had been installed when Joe Louis Arena was built.

Other uses

Joe Louis Arena was the site of the 1980 Republican National Convention where Ronald Reagan was nominated as the Republican candidate for President of the United States.

In 1995, the Detroit Junior Red Wings won the Ontario Hockey League's J. Ross Robertson Cup, defeating the Guelph Storm.

Joe Louis Arena hosts college hockey events as part of College Hockey at The Joe and Great Lakes Invitational.

The Detroit Pistons of the NBA used the arena for Game 5 of their 1984 playoff series against the New York Knicks when the Pontiac Silverdome was unavailable due to a scheduling conflict. In the game, Piston star Isiah Thomas scored 16 points in the final 1:34 of regulation to send the game into overtime before the Pistons lost. The Pistons were forced to return to Joe Louis Arena for 15 games during the 1984–85 season, after the roof of the Silverdome collapsed during a snowstorm.

Joe Louis Arena was the site of the decisive Game 5 of the 2006 WNBA Finals between the Sacramento Monarchs and Detroit Shock on September 9, due to The Palace of Auburn Hills (the Shock's usual home arena) already being used for a Mariah Carey concert on the same day. The Shock won the game 80–75 to clinch the championship.

Former Arena Football League team the Detroit Drive also had success during their time at the arena, playing in six consecutive ArenaBowls from 1988 to 1993 and winning four of them. Four of the games (ArenaBowl III, ArenaBowl IV, ArenaBowl V and ArenaBowl VII) were played in Joe Louis Arena.

In addition, Joe Louis Arena is also a concert venue. Until The Palace of Auburn Hills was built in 1988, Joe Louis Arena was Michigan's largest indoor arena for concerts during the 1980s. The first concert to take place there was on February 19, 1980. Max Webster was the first musical act to play there when they opened for the Canadian rock group, Rush. To compensate for most of JLA's concert business being moved north, the Red Wings began a tradition of playing a home game on New Year's Eve which continues today (Exceptions were in 1994 and 2007 due to scheduling, and 2004 and 2012 because of the NHL lockouts those years).

Recent additions

Joe Louis Arena currently houses 86 premium suites. In 2008, the arena introduced the Comerica Bank Legend's Club, a 181-person private seating location in the southeast corner of the arena. The Legend's Club is also the site of a pilot program called the SkyBOX. St. Louis-based Vivid Sky introduced the SkyBOX into the Legend's Club in January 2008. The SkyBOX gives Champion's Club patrons the ability to view instant replays and statistical information via a wireless device in the Skybox.

New arena for the Red Wings

Several plans for a replacement arena have surfaced in recent years, including proposals for the expansion of Cobo Hall that require JLA to be demolished. Currently, no firm plan for replacement or remodeling is in place. In 2009, the Red Wings announced that they would not renew their 30-year Joe Louis Arena lease with the City of Detroit (which also included the rights to Cobo Arena). Olympia Entertainment say they now plan to negotiate a new lease for Joe Louis, which could either be a long-term commitment that would lead to renovating the existing arena, or a short term deal that would buy them time to arrange financing for a new venue.

On February 23, 2010, Ilitch Holdings announced the hiring of Tom Wilson. Wilson will be president and CEO of a soon-to-be-named new enterprise within Ilitch Holdings. At the press conference announcing Wilson's hiring, Christopher Ilitch did not rule out the construction of an arena that would house both the Detroit Pistons and the Red Wings. He also did not rule out the Red Wings playing temporarily at The Palace of Auburn Hills until a new building was ready downtown.

In May 2012 the Wings hired HKS, Inc. to design a new 18,000 seat arena in downtown Detroit. Co-architect is Chan Krieger of NBBJ, a Boston architect specializing in urban developments. Several sites in downtown have already been explored for the arena location.

In December 2012, Olympia Entertainment announced the intention to develop a new district in downtown Detroit composed of offices, residential facilities, and "a new state-of-the-art, multi-purpose events center". The project has an estimated cost of $650 million.

On June 19, 2013, the city of Detroit's Downtown Development Authority officially announced the location of the new Detroit Red Wings arena and entertainment district. The new arena was to be built in an area north of downtown/ Interstate 75 and bracketed by Woodward Avenue , Cass Avenue and Temple Street. The new arena will seat 18,000, with a total event center space of 650,000 square feet. There will be 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground level, 105,000 square feet of office space and 35,000 square feet of retail. According to the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., $285 million of the $650 million cost will be public, with $365.5 million in private funding.

Statistics

• Built: 1977–1979
• Construction Cost: $57 million
• Seating capacity: 20,066 (including suites); 20,338 for end-stage concerts and 21,152 for center-stage concerts.
• Dimensions: 328 x 550 x 85 (ft), approximately 12 million ft³ (340,000 m³).
• Home Team: Detroit Red Wings (NHL).
• Former Teams: Detroit Rockers (NPSL) 1996–01, Detroit Pistons (NBA) for one playoff game in 1984 because of venue unavailability, and 15 games in 1985 after the roof collapsed at the Pontiac Silverdome, Detroit Compuware Ambassadors (OHL) 1991–92, Detroit Junior Red Wings (OHL) 1992–95, Detroit Drive (AFL) 1988–93, Detroit Turbos (MILL) 1989–94, Detroit Shock, (WNBA) for playoff games in 2004 and the 2006 WNBA Finals Game 5 when The Palace of Auburn Hills was unavailable because of a concert.
• Opening event: December 12, 1979, basketball game between the University of Michigan and the University of Detroit.
• Opening hockey event: December 27, 1979, the Detroit Red Wings versus the St. Louis Blues. St. Louis won that particular night 3–2.
• 1980 Republican National Convention, John Hancock (Insurance) Champions On Ice, three NCAA Frozen Four college hockey finals, college basketball & others.
• Championships: Detroit Red Wings (1996–97, 1997–98, 2001–02 & 2007–08), Detroit Rockers (1991), Detroit Drive (1988, 1989 & 1990), Detroit Turbos (1991).
• Site of WWF The Main Event 1990, Survivor Series 1991, Survivor Series 1999, Survivor Series 2005, Vengeance 2002, 2009 Royal Rumble, and Over the Limit 2010.
• Has hosted 2004 WWE Draft and numerous tapings of WWE Raw, Friday Night SmackDown! and ECW on Syfy. Most recently, a WWE Raw SuperShow on April 23, 2012 that featured contract signing for the match between Brock Lesnar and John Cena.
• Site of WCW Halloween Havoc in 1994 and 1995.
• Site of the annual Great Lakes Invitational, in college hockey, as well as the annual CCHA tournament.
• Site of the 2010 Assemblies of God National Youth Convention.
• Holds the unusual distinction of being the closest major American arena to a foreign country, as it is located across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ontario.

External links

• Joe Louis Arena website
• Video review of Joe Louis Arena
• Red Wings Deal is a Catch 22 - Detroit Free Press Article

Events and tenants
Preceded by Olympia Stadium	Home of the Detroit Red Wings 1979 – present	Succeeded by current
Preceded by Buffalo Memorial Auditorium	Host of the NHL All-Star Game 1980	Succeeded by The Forum
Preceded by Olympic Center Lake Placid, New York	Host of the Frozen Four 1985	Succeeded by Providence Civic Center Providence, Rhode Island
Preceded by Providence Civic Center Providence, Rhode Island	Host of the Frozen Four 1987	Succeeded by Olympic Center Lake Placid, New York
Preceded by Saint Paul Civic Center St. Paul, Minnesota	Host of the Frozen Four 1990	Succeeded by Saint Paul Civic Center St. Paul, Minnesota
Preceded by Madison Square Garden	Home of the Royal Rumble 2009	Succeeded by Philips Arena