The Cherry Hill Arena was an indoor arena located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, built in 1959. It was originally known as the Ice House and renamed the Delaware Valley Gardens before assuming its most familiar name. The arena, which seated 4,416, was the home of the short-lived Jersey Larks of the Eastern Hockey League in 1960-61 and hosted occasional home games of the NBA Philadelphia Warriors. In 1964 EHL hockey returned to the arena in the form of the Jersey Devils, who would be the arena's longest-lasting tenants, surviving until the EHL folded in 1973. Early in the 1973-1974 hockey season, the New York Golden Blades of the World Hockey Association moved to the arena and played there as the New Jersey Knights for the rest of the season. Sports Illustrated later described Cherry Hill Arena as "perhaps the worst facility" used by any WHA team, noting that it lacked showers in the dressing room for visiting teams, who had to dress at a Holiday Inn two miles away.
By 1978 the arena had been renamed The Centrum. The Jersey Aces of the Northeastern Hockey League began the 1978-79 season as tenants at the Centrum, but moved to Hampton, Virginia after a handful of home games.
The Cherry Hill Arena was demolished in the 1980s and replaced by a shopping center, the main of which was - at different times - a Kmart and three grocery stores, a Super G, Stop & Shop, and lastly a now-closed ShopRite. Another shopping center, called the Centrum Shops, uses the arena's final name but is located across Brace Road from the arena site.
Famous quotes containing the words cherry, hill and/or arena:
“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Cried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story!
The sea swept on and cried her old cry still,
Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill.
He fled the persecution of her glory....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Children treat their friends differently than they treat the other people in their lives. A friendship is a place for experimenting with new ways of handling anger and aggression. It is an arena for practicing reciprocity, testing assertiveness, and searching for compromise in ways children would not try with parents or siblings.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)