The Rhode Island Auditorium

The Rhode Island Auditorium was built in 1925 by a group of investors headed by LaSalle Academy graduate and local textile industrialist, Hubert C. Milot.

In 1924, four Canadian cities comprised the entire National Hockey League. That year, representatives of several American cities responded to NHL overtures to make their case to join the league. New York was the first and then, in the early spring of that year, the 34-year-old Milot was next. He traveled to Montreal to sound out the possibilities of Providence acquiring a franchise. With no established indoor facility, he was rebuked. Upon his return to Providence, Hubert set his sights on creating a showcase for sports that would surpass in size and grandeur any other such venue in New England. And that he did.

The Auditorium opened at 1111 North Main Street on the East Side of Providence on Feb. 18, 1926.

Surprisingly, when the Auditorium made its debut, it was not for a hockey game. Instead, an overflow crowd of 6,000 spectators jammed the new building to enjoy an ice skating show.

The next fall, the Providence Reds joined the Canadian-American Hockey League composed of the Philadelphia Arrows, Quebec Beavers, New Haven Eagles and Boston Bruin Cubs. The team was founded and operated by Judge James E. Dooley, a politically-connected businessman and sports enthusiast who, over his career, was also part owner of the Providence Grays baseball team, the 1928 NHL champion Providence Steamroller, and the famed Narragansett Thoroughbred Race Track on the Pawtucket-East Providence line.

In those early days, Jean Dubuc, a graduate of Notre Dame and former major league baseball pitcher with the Detroit Tigers, served as General Manager of both the Reds and the Auditorium, holding the title of president, as well.

Louis A. R. Pieri, a Brown University graduate, who starred there in baseball, basketball and football, became General Manager of the Auditorium in 1929. Then, in 1938, he and his wife Mildred, daughter Lucille, and son Louis took ownership of both the building and the Reds hockey team. Pieri later became one of the most important sports figures and entertainment promoters in the United States.

For years, while the big building stood on North Main Street, it was called both the RI Auditorium and the Arena. Photos of the edifice show the name RI Auditorium, backlit by neon lights on the marquee over the main entrance. Yet high above, at the very top of the building’s facade itself, was the word ARENA, painted in big, white capital letters.

One dictionary says this about the word Arena: “An area in a Roman amphitheater used for gladiatorial combats.” Maybe that’s why that grand old Providence sports landmark, plus hundreds of others around the United States, Canada and beyond, began taking on the title of Arena.

Thousands of fans flocked there for entertainment of every description beyond hockey and basketball – ice shows, circuses, rodeos, boxing and wrestling cards, rock concerts, regional exhibitions, and much more. Over time, dating back to its very earliest years in the 1930s, sports pages, television reports, game or event programs would eventually and affectionately come to settle on referring to it simply as the “Auditorium”.

The “Entertainment Palace of Southern New England”, was finally razed in 1989. The site now serves as an employee parking lot for the neighboring Miriam Hospital.