Pioneers plan to remodel home
With seven national championships, and on the heels of its 14th NCAA Frozen Four appearance, University of Denver hockey intends to further identify itself as Colorado’s most successful Division I program by bringing in the bling.
Through private fundraising, the Pioneers intend to renovate and expand their off-ice space at Magness Arena, spending as much as $2 million by the beginning of the 2017-18 season. In addition to a new locker room, the space will include a new lounge for the players with a full kitchen, dry dressing room and coaches room.
The outside hallway may rival the museumlike feel of what Montreal Canadiens players see when walking into their locker room at the Bell Centre. Passers-by will see glass-encased NCAA championship trophies along with images and equipment from former DU All-Americans, Olympians, NHL players and other legends.
“I love where the program is headed, and this is the last step to put the icing on the cake,” said DU coach Jim Montgomery, a Montreal native and former Canadiens forward. “We still get a lot of great recruits, but we’ve lost on some recruits because we don’t have that wow factor when they walk into our locker room like they do at North Dakota, Miami or UNO (University of Nebraska at Omaha).”
North Dakota, Miami (Ohio) and St. Cloud State have pumped millions into arena/locker room renovations, UNO moved into a lavish new facility this past season and Minnesota-Duluth opened a new arena in 2010. Those are five of DU’s National Collegiate Hockey Conference rivals.
“We just need to do it,” Montgomery said. “Never mind nationally. Just look at our conference.”
Magness Arena opened in 1999, a month before the Pepsi Center.
“It’s going on 17 years since this building has been here and nothing has been done to the locker room. We need to give it the pop it needs of an elite-level program,” Montgomery said. “I think if there’s any part of our program that can prevent us from sustaining being a top-five program — which I think we are — would be the dressing room and lounge area.”
Montgomery is leading the fundraising effort. A large chunk of the $2 million is expected to come from former Pioneers, including active NHL players Paul Stastny (making $7 million with St. Louis), Matt Carle ($5.5 million Tampa Bay) and Tyler Bozak ($4.2 million Toronto).
DU has made significant improvements to the arena, but the locker rooms are not in the budget.
“We have a state-of-theart lifting facility and the arena is awesome — the school has put $4 million to $5 million between lighting, sound and everything else (including scoreboard/video) to update it,” Montgomery said. “We just need to face-lift our locker room, and that’s the last piece I think that needs to be done to maintain that elite status.”
DU has designs for the renovation but is not ready to make them public. The work is tentatively scheduled to begin next spring.