| J. Thom Lawlor Arena at the S. Peter Volpe Athletic Center | |
|---|---|
| Lawler Arena | |
 | |
| Location | North Andover, Massachusetts |
| Broke ground | 1972 |
| Opened | November 28, 1972 |
| Owner | Merrimack College |
| Operator | Merrimack College |
| Surface | 200x85 ft (hockey) |
| Construction cost | $2 million |
| Tenants | Merrimack Warriors athletics |
| Capacity | 3,000 (hockey arena) 3,617 (basketball arena) |
The S. Peter Volpe Athletic Center located in North Andover, Massachusetts is the home of the Merrimack College Warriors athletics teams. It has a basketball court and hockey arena. The Volpe Center is the home of the men's and women's basketball teams, as well as the volleyball team. Lawler Arena is the home of the Division I Merrimack Warriors men's ice hockey team, which had won the 1978 Division II national title before transitioning to Division I and joining the prestigious Hockey East Conference.
The athletic center is named for S. Peter Volpe, a member of the college's Board of Trustees and benefactor. His construction company was responsible for the building of the McQuaid Library on campus. His brother, John Volpe, was U.S. Secretary of Transportation under President Richard M. Nixon. The hockey arena is named for J. Thom Lawler, former coach of the men's hockey team who died in 1978 at age 44, just after leading the team to their national title. A renovated Volpe Center was supposed to be open as of the 2001 season, however lack of fundraising has forced a delay in the completed renovations. As of Sept. 2008, new home locker rooms and a new press box have been completed in the J. Thom Lawler Arena, the ice hockey portion of the Volpe Center. As well as the Blue Line Club, an exclusive room for the hockey program's top supporters. A new ice hockey arena is still planned, but a completion date is not known as of Sept. 2008
External links[]
References[]
| This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Volpe Complex. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA). |