Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and now the Abbotsford Canucks?!
When the Calder Cup Finals open inside the historic Bojangles Coliseum starting on Friday (June 13), the Western Conference champion Canucks join an incredible cast of characters who have performed under those lights in its close to 70 years of existence.
The 8,600-seat multi-purpose arena's main feature is its unique domed roof, which is made of tin. Construction originally began on the venue in 1953 and it officially opened in September 1955. At the time of its completion it was the world's largest unsupported steel dome and the first free-spanning dome in America. It was considered an architectural marvel and countless newspaper and magazine stories were written about the construction process.
The decades that followed featured a who's who in the entertainment world at that time, as the Charlotte Coliseum (original name) was one of the premier venues in the American south. Elvis Presley first performed in the building in 1956 and would return several times before his last show inside the building in 1977. Other notable acts included: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Louis Armstrong, Diana Ross, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Hope, Mother Theresa, American evangelist Billy Graham, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan played his first-ever college game for the University of North Carolina at the Coliseum in 1981. The venue was also home to the American Basketball Association's Carolina Cougars from 1969 to 1974. That team's best season was 1972-73 when they finished first in the East Division during the regular season with a record of 57-27. They advanced to the East Division Finals in the playoffs, but fell 4-3 to the Kentucky Colonels. The venue has also hosted several significant NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, as well as the Charlotte 49ers college teams.
Hockey initially arrived at the Charlotte Coliseum when the Baltimore Clippers moved to North Carolina in January 1956. A sell-out crowd of 10,363 jammed the arena to see the Charlotte Clippers take on the New Haven Blades. The team re-branded as the Checkers the next season and lasted until 1977 when the club folded.
The ECHL version of the Checkers arrived in 1993 and won the league championship in 1996. The team lasted until 2010 (but only lasted at the Coliseum until 2005) when the club's owner purchased the AHL's Albany River Rats and moved them to Charlotte starting with the 2010-11 season. However, they didn't move to the Coliseum until upgrades were completed to reach AHL standards beginning in 2015. Part of those upgrades included removing the old wooden seats and replacing them with wider plastic seats, which saw the venue's capacity dip slightly.
The team was previously the Carolina Hurricanes affiliate, but began as the Florida Panthers farm team in 2020-21. The Checkers won the Calder Cup in 2019 and the Coliseum is the site of the longest game in AHL history, which saw Charlotte and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms play until 6:48 of the fifth overtime on May 9/10, 2018.
The venue has also hosted arena football, lacrosse and indoor soccer. Professional wrestling has also been a staple of the venue, with WCW Starrcade 1993, WCW Slamboree 1997 and several episodes of All Elite Wrestling airing live.
In addition to sports and entertainment, the venue has hosted politicians including events from both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump last year.
Throughout its history the building has hosted more than 19,000 events and had tens of millions go through the turnstiles. The Abbotsford Canucks and Charlotte Checkers will continue adding to that rich history starting on Friday (June 13).
