Anchorage, Alaska
🏀 Alaska Anchorage Seawolves

The largest basketball-only facility in the nation’s largest state, the doors of Alaska Airlines Center opened in 2014. With a capacity of 5,000 spectators, the impressively modern arena is tied for the 14th largest in Division II basketball and is the home of the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves. It serves to replace the team’s previous venue, a cramped little gym that was built back in 1978, just a year after Anchorage Senior College had been reorganized to form the University of Alaska Anchorage that still lives on today.

Alaska Airlines Center boasts so much more than just the main basketball arena, coming equipped with an indoor track, weight room, sports medicine office and two separate auxiliary gyms. Overall, the facility was designed to be a true hub for student-athletes across all athletic programs.

On the fan side, a restaurant called the Varsity Sports Grill sits on the suite level of the arena, cooking up lunch and dinner cuisine that’s available to premium guests on game nights and open to everyone during normal business hours. The grill also features a big selection of local craft beers and even fine wines.

In the arena’s main atrium, display cases line the hallway, highlighting championships and other big moments from all of the university’s athletic teams. Plaques are also scattered along the floor, etching UAA’s greatest players and squads into a sort of Hall of Fame. Above it all stands a giant Seawolf motif, the style of which is directly inspired by the Native art that’s prolific across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Competing in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, the Seawolves have struggled a bit on the court. They won one regular season title in 2008 and sadly remain the only team in the circuit to have never won a conference championship.

But aside from their mediocre performance in the Division II ranks, the Seawolves are probably best known for having been the long-running hosts of the Great Alaska Shootout, a DI tournament held annually for close to four decades. Traditionally played around Thanksgiving, the Shootout’s final few editions were played inside Alaska Airlines Arena, moving there from the slightly larger Sullivan Arena, the hockey rink where it had been previously contested for many years. Although the last year for the men’s event was 2017, the Seawolf women continue to host the Shootout to this day.