Operations
First Niagara Center is home to the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League and the Buffalo Bandits of the National Lacrosse League. The arena was the home of the Buffalo Destroyers of the Arena Football League, the Buffalo Blizzard of the National Professional Soccer League II, and the Buffalo Wings of Roller Hockey International during each team's brief existence. During the 2012 NHL lockout, the arena has hosted several Rochester Americans games.
The arena also is used regularly for college basketball games and hosts concerts. It has been home to the NCAA (2000, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2014) and MAAC (1997, 1999, 2001, 2005) men's basketball tournaments. In 2003 the Arena hosted the Frozen Four NCAA Ice Hockey tournament. In addition, First Niagara Center has been used for hosting several professional wrestling events, mainly WWE's Fully Loaded 1999, The Great American Bash (2005) and Armageddon 2008, World Championship Wrestling's Fall Brawl 2000, the February 28, 2011 episode of Monday Night Raw and WWE Night Of Champions 2011, which took place on September 18, 2011. Wrestling came back to the First Niagara Center when the WWE held a WWE Raw- Road to Wrestlemania house show Sunday March 11, 2012.
The arena was also host to a house party for the 2008 NHL Winter Classic. Festivities included the Buffalo Sabres Alumni Hockey Team playing in pre-game action, followed by the Winter Classic shown on the scoreboard. In December 2010 through January 2011, the arena hosted the IIHF World Junior Championship tournament.
The arena is also a regular stop for major concert tours and is the largest concert venue in Buffalo proper (it is one of two regular stops in Western New York for concert tours, the other being the performing arts center at Darien Lake).
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Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You can’t have operations without screams. Pain and the knife—they’re inseparable.”
—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)