TD Garden is a multi-purpose arena in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located directly above the MBTA's North Station, and it replaced the original Boston Garden upon opening in 1995. It is the most visited sports and entertainment arena in New England, with nearly 3.5 million people visiting the arena each year.
TD Garden is the home arena for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). It is owned by food service and hospitality conglomerate Delaware North, whose CEO Jeremy Jacobs also owns the Bruins. It is the site of the annual Beanpot college hockey tournament, and hosts the annual Hockey East Championships. The arena has hosted many major national sporting events including various rounds of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament, NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament, the 2014 United States Figure Skating Championships, and the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships. In addition, TD Garden hosted the 2021 Laver Cup, an international men's tennis tournament.
Besides sporting events, the TD Garden has also served as a concert venue for numerous nationally touring acts in music and comedy. The naming rights deal for the arena is scheduled to continue through June 2045, with TD Bank and Delaware North extending the agreement in January 2023.
History
Planning As early as the late 1970s, the Bruins were looking for a new arena. The Boston Garden was nearly 50 years old at the time. The Jacobs family, who had bought the Bruins in 1975, was looking to build a 17,000-seat arena in suburban Boston after negotiations fell through with the city of Boston. The team nearly moved to Salem, New Hampshire, around where the Mall at Rockingham Park is today. That fell through and the Bruins continued to play at Boston Garden. The Celtics, also looking for a new arena, considered moving to Revere, Massachusetts, adjacent to Boston.
In 1985, Boston Garden owner Delaware North was awarded the rights to construct a new arena by the Boston Redevelopment Authority and Mayor Raymond Flynn. However, poor economic conditions delayed the project.
On May 8, 1992, Delaware North announced that it had secured funding for a new arena in the form of $120 million worth of loans evenly split between Bank of Boston, Fleet Bank of Massachusetts and Shawmut National Corporation. That December, a bill approving construction of the new arena was killed in the Massachusetts Senate by Senate President William M. Bulger. Legislative leaders and Delaware North attempted to reach an agreement on plans for the new arena, but in February 1993 Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs announced that he was backing out of the project as a result of the legislature's demand that his company pay $3.5 million in "linkage payments". Massachusetts governor Bill Weld lent strong support to a "Chapter 15" piece of legislation that included a "Section 7" that explicitly required Delaware North to "administer, produce, promote and sponsor no less than three charitable events per year at the New Boston Garden" and pay the proceeds from such events to the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), today known as the state's Department of Conservation and Recreation. Two weeks later, after a new series of negotiations, the two sides finally came to an agreement, and on February 26 the legislature passed a bill that allowed for construction of a new arena.
Construction Construction began on April 29, 1993. Although the new arena was intended to be situated slightly north of the old facility, there were only of space between the two buildings when construction was completed. The site for the new arena occupied and eventually cost $160 million. Construction was completed in 27 months, including seven weeks of delay caused by heavy snowfall.
Opening On the evening of September 29, 1995, a farewell event was held in the old Boston Garden hosted by WBZ-TV news personality Liz Walker and CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather. Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito, Bruins legends, as well as Celtics greats Larry Bird and Red Auerbach attended. The ceremony concluded with the release of thousands of balloons into the rafters to the music of the Boston Pops. The Boston Globe said that "all New England has lost a friend".
The next night, opening ceremonies were held at the FleetCenter including performances by the Boston Pops, Walt Disney's World on Ice, Olympic figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Paul Wylie, and musical acts James Taylor, Patti LaBelle, and US3. The Boston Bruins played their first game in the new arena on October 7, a 4–4 tie with the New York Islanders. The Boston Celtics lost their first game at the FleetCenter by a score of 101–100 to the Milwaukee Bucks on November 3.
Naming
TD Garden is named after its sponsor, TD Bank, a subsidiary of Canada's Toronto-Dominion Bank. During the construction phase, the naming rights to the "New Garden" were sold to Boston-based Shawmut Bank, and the arena was originally slated to open as the Shawmut Center. However, just as the arena was being completed, Shawmut merged with Fleet Financial Group, forcing every seat in the arena, which had all been stamped with the Shawmut logo, to be replaced. The interior color scheme also had to be adjusted from Shawmut's darker blue to Fleet's marginally lighter blue.
The name of the arena was expected to change as a result of the April 1, 2004, merger of FleetBoston Financial with Bank of America. On January 5, 2005, Delaware North announced an agreement under which the bank made a payment to be released from the remaining six years on the naming rights agreement. The agreement left Delaware North free to sell the naming rights to another sponsor. On March 3, 2005, Maine-based TD Banknorth, a U.S. subsidiary of Toronto-Dominion Bank, announced its purchase of the naming rights for $6 million per year. The first major event to be held after the announcement was the 2005 Hockey East Men's Ice Hockey Tournament. On July 1, 2005, the facility was officially renamed the TD Banknorth Garden. Bill Ryan, the chairman and CEO of TD Banknorth and a passionate booster of Boston sports, had specifically pursued the naming rights for TD Banknorth to restore the "Garden" monicker to the North Station edifice.
In early 2005, while still searching for a long-term corporate sponsor, the FleetCenter conducted auctions on eBay to sell one-day naming rights. From February 10 to March 13, the FleetCenter sold the naming rights 30 different times. The net proceeds of $150,633.22 generated during the auction were donated to charities in the greater Boston area. The FleetCenter also made private arrangements with a few companies for one-day naming rights, and offered one-day rights in an employee raffle.
During the name auction, only twice were names reported to have been rejected. Kerry Konrad, a New York City lawyer and Yankees fan, won naming rights for March 1 with a bid of $2,300. He proposed the name "Derek Jeter Center" after the New York Yankees shortstop, a stab at fellow Harvard College alumnus and Boston Red Sox fan Jerry Rappaport Jr., with whom he had a 25-year-old rivalry. With the arena located in the home city of the Red Sox, the name did not sit well with the executives and was rejected. An agreement was reached in which Rappaport added $6,300 for a total bid of $8,600, representing the 86 years of the Curse of the Bambino, and named the arena "New Boston Garden, Home of the Jimmy Fund Champions". Fark.com founder Drew Curtis held a contest on his website to name the arena after he bought single-day rights. A user vote resulted in the name of "Fark.com UFIA Center", but the name was rejected because of its inappropriate meaning. The name eventually selected by Curtis and company was "Boston Garden".
In April 2008, TD Banknorth became TD Bank, after a merger with Commerce Bancorp, a New Jersey–based bank. Owner Delaware North Companies announced on April 15, 2009, that the building would be renamed TD Garden in July 2009.
Delaware North and TD Bank announced the extension of the naming rights deal on January 12, 2023, with the rights now extending until June 30, 2045, which would keep the arena's name stable for forty years. The same agreement also saw TD Bank extend their helmet advertising rights for the Bruins acquired at the start of the 2020–21 NHL season, until the end of the 2044–45 NHL season.
Renovations
Before the 2006–07 season, the TD Garden underwent a major overhaul, installing a new HD entertainment board, with video panels replacing the sideboard scrolling panels when the arena hosted the 2006 Women's Final Four, and see-through shot clocks on the basket stancions, joining the FedExForum, Wells Fargo Center, State Farm Arena, Talking Stick Resort Arena, United Center, Rocket Arena, and the Spectrum (that was done before the NBA mandate was installed in 2011). In addition, a vintage siren, just as the original Boston Garden had used, was added to replace the end-of-period horn for hockey only, a feature of the Montreal Canadiens, the Bruins' arch-rivals, at the Montreal Forum (now the Pepsi Forum shopping centre) and the Centre Bell. In 2009, an LED energy efficient lighting system was added to the exterior of the building. The Boston Globe announced a $70 million project upgrade to TD Garden's concourses and Legends Club restaurant, along with technology upgrades and the relocation of a retail shop. Construction occurred in two phases, summer 2014 and then summer 2015.
On January 25, 2013, during a Celtics vs. Knicks game at the Garden, television announcer Marv Albert accused the TD Garden production crew for being one of those arenas that "constantly" use false sound effects and artificial crowd noise to intensify the crowd reactions on nationally televised games (which is very similar to "sweetening" on television); however, the official Twitter account of the Boston Celtics stated that the Celtics have never partaken in the practice. Following their 2011 Stanley Cup Final win, the Bruins changed their previous Stanley Cup banners to reflect the changes in the team's main jersey logo through time during their past five Cup wins, as the logo adorns the 2011 Cup win's banner. Just before the 2018–19 series of pre-season NHL games began for the Bruins at TD Garden, the arena's interior overhead lighting was switched to a new LED system which also includes color elements at appropriate times.
Before the 2021–22 NHL season, TD Garden underwent more renovations, adding a new center scoreboard/video screen, along with a new audio system. The new "Hub Vision" system is above 4K UHD resolution, and the main replay screen sizes are almost double of the old ones, at 18 feet by 32.5 feet wide. The unit also features auxiliary screens beneath to allow court/rinkside viewers to look at the board, which measure at 6.5 feet tall by 23 feet wide to cater to those sitting in the first few rows. Above the main boards, are 2 new ring displays. Each ring is 3.5 feet tall, and has a circumference of 179 feet. Hub Vision only has 2 rings above the main screens, unlike the old jumbotron with 2 at the top, and one at the bottom. TD Garden partnered with Clair Global Integration to add Cohesion Series CO10 loudspeakers to help improve the sound system.
This renovation was an extension of TD Garden's Legendary Transformation, which was a $100 million investment from the Jeremy Jacobs family.
Use Among the non-sporting events hosted by the Garden are concerts, shows, graduations, seminars, Disney on Ice, and the circus.
Sports
The arena is primarily the home venue for the NBA's Boston Celtics and the NHL's Boston Bruins. It has hosted the following events:
NHL All-Star Game: