The arena opened one month before the Pepsi Center - and its hockey program has out-championed every NHL team in the same city. Magness Arena, the centerpiece of the University of Denver's Ritchie Center at 2240 Buchtel Boulevard, opened on 15 September 1999 and is home ice for one of college hockey's dynasties. The building replaced a rink with history: the old University of Denver Arena - razed in 1997 - had carried the program's early national titles, and the 84-million-dollar, 440,000-square-foot Ritchie Center consolidated all seventeen Pioneer sports under its gold-topped tower, with the arena's sandstone and limestone matching the campus fabric. The hockey pedigree is the story: Denver's ten NCAA championships - including the 2022 and 2024 titles won from this building - make Magness one of the sport's meccas, its 6,026 theater-style seats regularly overflowing (a record 7,033 packed in for Colorado College in March 2024) with the DU-CC Gold Pan rivalry the hottest ticket in college hockey's west. The versatility earns the multi-purpose label: Pioneer basketball and gymnastics share the bowl - the gymnastics program has hosted five NCAA regional championships here - while concert configurations stretch toward 8,000, a capacity that made the arena a mid-size Denver music stop from its Westword best-new-venue debut in 2000 onward. The campus setting completes it: the Ritchie Center's El Pomar Natatorium, Coors Fitness Center and climbing walls surround the arena, and the University of Denver light rail station on RTD's E and H lines sits at the campus edge - transit access most college arenas never get. Practical notes: hockey Saturdays sell out weeks ahead in ranked seasons - buy early; the student section behind the north goal drives the noise, upper-corner seats stay excellent in a bowl this tight, and the pre-game walk under the gold Williams Tower carillon is the traditional arrival.

Type: Stadium / Arena

Address: 2201 East Asbury Ave, Denver, CO, United States, 80210

Website: https://denverpioneers.com

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 6026

Opening Date: 15/09/1999

Serves Food

Accessible