There is no S in Allen Event Center

The festivities for the Allen Event Center are in full effect this week as the $50+ million building holds its first major events this weekend with a Reba McEntire concert there Friday night and the Allen Americans hockey team hosting their home opener Saturday.

I toured the building several months ago when it was in the latter stages of construction and Monday I got the opportunity to walk through the building once more, flanked as per usual by my nameless photographer.

The one thing that stands out the most: The fire alarms certainly work.

Workers were going in and out while putting the finishing touches on the building … shouldn’t this place have been done more than four days before its opening … and this led to several triggers of the fire alarm. This was slightly annoying as it was harder to hear the people speaking, but the upside is I know I should be okay if a fire were to break out at the Event Center.

There are two reasons I can make this bold claim: First, the alarm system is so loud even someone who has dead batteries in their hearing aide would be able to hear it and secondly, the voice on the fire alarm is so soothing and trustworthy, you can’t help but follow his instructions and think everything is going to be ok.

But assuming you go to the Event Center and there is no fire, there are several other things to take note of.

First off, let’s talk about the seating. The venue is configured at 6,200 people for hockey games with concerts allowing the building to hold 7,700-8,100 fans depending on the setup of the stage.

Arena seats are pretty much the same everywhere you go, so let’s skip to the suites.

There are 24 standard suites in the building with an additional five party suites. I don’t know if the marketers at the building thought of this, but adding the word party just makes those five suites sound more fun. The party suites have 18 fixed seats, but appear as though they can hold several more people than that.

If you don’t have that many friends, try a standard suite as the Event Center has those in the 10-, 12-, 14- and 16-person variety.

Some of the key features across the board for the suites are flat screen televisions, leather couches, conventional seats, a sink (hey, that’s important too) and bar stools.

There will be plenty of food options for those in attendance as the Event Center has four permanent stands, perhaps the most well-known of which is CiCi’s, and several portable kiosks, including one from Bar-B-Cutie.

So you’ve got your food and you’ve got your seat, let’s talk about what there is to watch. The Event Center has bold ambitions as representatives with the building said Monday they want the venue to be the arena of record in the Metroplex behind only the American Airlines Center.

That means bringing a variety of shows to the building, but the one constant will be the Americans.

For those that check out the hockey team, whose home opener is Saturday night, there are videoboards on either side of center ice, scoreboards behind the nets and an LED ribbon around the arena. Perhaps the only aesthetic downfall for the hockey games may be the ice, which already has the ridiculous-look of a NASCAR vehicle with all the advertisements. Then again, we are in a tough economy, so I guess changes in business strategy have to be made.

But since I said something bad about the hockey team, I will point out they do have free parking for every home game and the adjacent parking garages can hold 2,500 cars.

I will take advantage of said parking Saturday as I’ll be there to watch the Americans host the IceRays, yes it’s one word, from Corpus Christi.

But the fact that I am going to be there doesn’t mean I have forgiven the Americans for stealing our name … oh that’s right, STOLE!

I asked Americans head coach and general manager Dwight Mullins about this and he claimed the name for the team was chosen before they even knew about our newspaper. I find that hard to believe considering the media juggernaut we have built here.

Americans goalie Charlie Effinger, who was already promoted to the Texas Stars (think Double A to Triple A in minor league baseball terms) at one point this season, had a much more logical explanation for the name theft.

“You guys have clearly built quite a name for yourself,” Effinger said. “So we figured the best thing for us to do would be to piggyback off of it.”

Congratulations Mr. Effinger, not only are you a superb netminder … you are now my favorite Americans player.

Current Rating: 3.4 of 5 votes!

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