📍 Portland, Maine
🏒 Home of the Maine Mariners

Hockey has long been a staple in The Forest City, with a handful of different minor league teams skating here consistently over the last half century. The town’s maritime heritage has run deep in each franchise that’s called Portland home, represented both in name and gameday presentation dating all the way back to the days of the AHL’s Maine Mariners in the ’70s and ’80s. Today, the Mariners name lives on in an ECHL franchise that continues to take to the ice at Cross Insurance Arena.

When the AHL first expanded to Maine in 1977, they placed the Mariners at the newly built Cumberland County Civic Center, a community project aimed at drawing in big-name events and shows to the Casco Bay region. The first iteration of the Mariners entertained fans here until they departed for Utica in 1987, but the void was quickly filled by another AHL expansion team of the same name that would continue playing in Portland until moving to Rhode Island in 1992. The Portland Pirates would soon replace the Mariners in the same league before relocating to Springfield, Massachusetts in 2016. When the Pirates left town, it marked the end of the AHL era in Portland – but less than two years later, the ECHL would set up shop at the barn now known as Cross Insurance Arena. A reactivation of the dormant Alaska Aces franchise – which had played in Anchorage for nearly 30 years – the new arrival took up the Mariners moniker once again and remains southern Maine’s one and only beloved hockey team.

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Cross Insurance Arena seats around 6,200 for hockey games – though many more can squeeze in for other events like concerts – and boasts a comfortable layout with a classic seating bowl design that features three-tiered suites in the corners. Nestled in the brick-clad Old Port neighborhood, the arena has been renovated over the years to keep up with the times, including a major rehab project that started in 2012 and wrapped up in 2014.

Surprisingly, the concessions available during Mariners games are just the standard fare and don’t include any of the delicious seafood dishes that Maine and New England as a whole are known for. But this is perhaps for the best – instead of overpriced arena seafood, fans can head into town for some hearty local plates before or after games.

Just off the main concourse is the Hall of Fame Lounge, a small room with hightop tables where fans can unwind and socialize prior to puck drop – or during the game, if they wish. The space is adorned with banners, jerseys and photos that guide you through the hockey history of both the arena and Portland itself.

The original AHL Mariners got a hot start right out of the gate, securing back-to-back Calder Cups in their first two seasons of play. They’d even go on to win a third a few years later and, when the Portland Pirates arrived in 1993, they would also claim a Calder Cup in their inaugural season. The present-day team, however, did not follow in these winning ways, still floundering in the waters of mediocrity and having only made the playoffs on a few occasions. But although the ECHL’s Mariners haven’t been quite as successful as their predecessors, they’ve still got the grit and determination that will hopefully one day lead them to the golden shores of a Kelly Cup trophy.