Wachovia Spectrum
Completed in 1967, it seats 18,136 for basketball and 17,380 for ice hockey, Arena football, indoor soccer, and indoor lacrosse. The building will be closed and demolished following the 2008-2009 hockey and soccer seasons with the final planned event to be a concert scheduled for September 30, 2009; afterwards, the arena will be razed to make way for a new hotel in conjunction with the Philly Live! complex.
Owners Comcast-Spectacor plan to build a 10,000 to 12,000 seat arena in the Philadelphia area to replace the Spectrum.
History
Opened as "The Spectrum" in the Fall of 1967, Philadelphia's first modern indoor sports arena was originally built to be the home of the expansion Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL, and also to accommodate the existing Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA. The building was the second major sports facility built at the South end of Broad Street in an area previously known as "East League Island Park" and now referred to simply as the "South Philadelphia Sports Complex."
Early years
The Spectrum was conceived and built to accommodate expansion of the NHL into Philadelphia which was awarded an expansion team for the 1967-68 season.
Ground was broken on the arena in June, 1966, and finished in 16 months at a cost of $7 million. The first event at the arena was the Quaker City Jazz Festival on September 30, 1967, produced by Larry Magid. The 76ers moved there from Convention Hall.
(Similarly in 1993, the Flyers played a day game against the Los Angeles Kings during a blizzard. A piece of flying debris smashed out one of the concourse windows causing cancellation of the game just after the first period was finished.) While the 76ers were able to move their home games to Convention Hall or to the Palestra, neither of those arenas had ice rinks at the time and there were no other NHL-quality sites in the Philadelphia area.
Thus the Flyers hurriedly moved their next home game (against the Oakland Seals) to Madison Square Garden in New York followed by a meeting with the Boston Bruins played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto before establishing a base at Le Colisée in Quebec City, home of their top minor league team, the AHL Quebec Aces, for the remainder of their regular season home schedule. (The roof was repaired in time to permit the Flyers to return to the Spectrum to open their first ever Stanley Cup play-offs against the St.
Louis Blues on April 4, 1968.) Because of its location the Flyers of the 1970s soon became popularly known as the "Broad Street Bullies."
Flyers and Sixers' championships and All-Star Games hosted
The Spectrum's ice rink
The Flyers won their first Stanley Cup at the Spectrum on May 19, 1974, defeating the Boston Bruins, 1-0, in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals in front of a then-capacity crowd of 17,007. Perhaps the most important and emotional hockey game -- or sporting event of any kind -- ever held there, however, came at the height of the Cold War on January 11, 1976, when the Flyers became the first NHL team to defeat (by 4-1) the then vaunted hockey team of the Soviet Central Red Army (ЦСКА).
Two games in the inaugural Canada Cup hockey tournament were also held at the Spectrum in September of that year, as the USA took on Czechoslovakia and the USSR.
Ten NHL or NBA playoff championship series were hosted at the Spectrum with the Flyers competing in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1985, and 1987, and the 76ers playing in the NBA Finals in 1977, 1980, 1982, and 1983. The 1976 and 1992 NHL, and 1970 and 1976 NBA All-Star Games were also held here.
The AHL Phantoms also won their first Calder Cup title on Spectrum ice before a sell-out crowd of 17,380 on June 10, 1998, by defeating the Saint John Flames, 6-1.
The Spectrum is the only venue to host the NBA and NHL All-Star Games in the same season, doing so in 1976, when it also hosted that year's Final Four.
College basketball tournaments
The Spectrum is frequently used for many basketball tournaments, including Big Five games, eight Atlantic Ten Conference tournaments (1977, 1983, 1997-2002), the 1975, 1980 and 1992 NCAA East Regional (site of the famous last-second shot by Christian Laettner of Duke to beat Kentucky), and the 1976 and 1981 Final Fours (both won by Bobby Knight's Indiana Hoosiers). Smaller conferences still prefer holding tournament games at this venue over the larger Center nearby.
Professional wrestling
Professional wrestling exhibitions promoted by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) were performed at the Spectrum on a regular basis during the 1980s and 1990's.
As were the Flyers and 76ers games, many of these performances were telecast live by PRISM, a regional sports and movies cable channel with its production and broadcast facilities physically located in the Spectrum from its founding in September 1976, until it ceased operations on October 1, 1997. (On that date PRISM was replaced by Comcast SportsNet located in the Wachovia Center.) Among the major WWF events which the building hosted were SummerSlam in 1990 , King of the Ring in 1995, and various other live shows featuring performers such as Hulk Hogan and others. After the WWF moved their shows into the adjacent Wachovia Center (opened in 1996) and Convention Hall at the Philadelphia Civic Center was closed (demolished in 2006), World Championship Wrestling (WCW) promoted their Philadelphia based shows at the Spectrum until the company was bought by the WWE in 2001.
Rock concerts
Popular music concerts have been staged at the Spectrum since the 1960s.
Led Zeppelin played here in 1972 and 1975 (Some footage of the second show has been seen in recent bootleg videos). However, the painkiller wore off and was taken to the hospital and missed the final encore of "Us and Them" where second guitarist Snowy White had to fill in on bass guitar.
Roger's experience whilst performing ill at this venue would be documented on "Comfortably Numb". A CD has been released of John Entwistle's performance on March 15, 1975 when he opened for Humble Pie.
Genesis regularly played the venue during the Phil Collins led era from 1977 to 1986 (they would play Veterans Stadium on their 1992 We Can't Dance tour and the Wachovia Center on their 2007 Turn it on Again reunion tour). Guns N' Roses also played at The Spectrum in 1991 during their Use Your Illusion Tour.
the concert can been seen on the 3rd disk of the Kissology Volume Two: 1978–1991 although its incomplete. The most recent rock act to play The Spectrum was The Cure.
Spectrum Theater
The Spectrum Theater was a venue for acts not big enough to fill the entire Spectrum arena.
Some of the acts that played in this configuration included Frank Zappa in 1973, 1976 and 1977; David Bowie's Diamond Dogs Tour in 1974; Bob Marley's Natty Dread Tour in 1975 and Kaya Tour in 1978; and Peter Gabriel's tours in 1982 and 1986.
The Flyers and 76ers' move
The Flyers and 76ers had been in need of a new facility for some time. There was only one concourse for all three levels, making for somewhat cramped conditions whenever attendance was anywhere near capacity.
Although both the Flyers and 76ers moved across the parking lot to the new and larger CoreStates Center in 1996, the Spectrum remained in use for the Philadelphia Phantoms of the AHL, the Philadelphia Kixx of the NISL, the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League for Saturday home games, and a variety of other sporting events and concerts.
The Spectrum and its replacement arena remained under the same ownership and naming rights.
The team are also celebrating some of the building’s memorable moments throughout the season. Phish and Bruce Springsteen are rumored to be among the acts to commemorate the closing of the arena.
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The Spectrum's "Sports Complex" neighbors
The Spectrum is now the oldest of the four currently existing arenas and stadiums (of the six built overall between 1926 and 2004) which make up Philadelphia's massive "Sports Complex" located at the South end of Broad Street. Kennedy Stadium (originally known from 1926 to 1964 as "Municipal Stadium") which had been built more than four decades earlier (opened April 15, 1926).
(The arena in which the fight sequences were actually filmed was the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.) The statue was removed several times over the years to be used in the filming of sequels to the original film. Other statues in the arena footprint include:
"Score!", a statue depicting Gary Dornhoefer's game winning overtime goal in Game Five of the Flyers' 1973 Stanley Cup Playoffs quarterfinal series against the Minnesota North Stars;
A statue of Kate Smith, the Flyers' good luck charm, whose rendition of God Bless America by Irving Berlin is believed to have helped the Flyers become back-to-back Stanley Cup Champions in 1974 and 1975;
A statue of Julius Erving, who played for the Philadelphia 76ers from 1976 until 1987.
It is not known where these statues will be placed when the arena is razed.
Tenants
Full time:
Philadelphia Phantoms of the AHL (also plays a few regular season and most Calder Cup playoff games at the adjacent Wachovia Center when the Spectrum is unavailable)
Philadelphia KiXX of the NPSL / MISL II / NISL
Part time:
Philadelphia Soul of the AFL (a few regular season games when the Wachovia Center is unavailable)
Former full time:
Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL
Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA
Philadelphia Bulldogs of the RHI
Philadelphia Freedoms of World Team Tennis (1974)
Philadelphia Fever of the original Major Indoor Soccer League
Both incarnations of the Philadelphia Wings (NLL I Original franchise 1974-75 and Eagle League/MILL/NLL II the current franchise 1987-1996)
Former part time:
Villanova University (some high-profile men's basketball home games which the on-campus arena, The Pavilion, is too small to accommodate)
Notable events
NBA All-Star Game - 1970, 1976
NHL Stanley Cup Finals - 1974, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1985, 1987
NHL All-Star Game - 1976, 1992
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament - 1976 and 1981 Men's Final Four (both won by Indiana); 1980 East Regional (won by Iowa) and 1992 East Regional (won by Duke).
NBA Finals - 1977, 1980, 1982, 1983
MILL Championship - 1989, 1992, 1994, 1995
WWF SummerSlam '90 - 1990
WWF King of the Ring - 1995
AHL Calder Cup Finals - 1998
NPSL Championship - 2001
MISL Championship - 2002
.