XL Center The XL Center , formerly known as the Hartford Civic Center , is a sports and convention complex located in Hartford , Connecticut , USA , owned by the City of Hartford and operated by Northland Investment Corporation / Anschutz Entertainment Group under contract with the Connecticut Development Authority ( CDA ) . The arena is ranked the 28th largest among college basketball arenas . Originally located adjacent to a shopping mall ( Civic Center Mall , which was demolished in 2004 ) , it was originally built in 1975 and consists of two facilities : the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the Exhibition Center . Recently , the CDA debated who will run the arena from 2007 - 08 through 2012 - 13 . The applicants were : On March 21 , 2007 , the CDA selected the Northland / Anschutz Entertainment Group proposal . It was revealed that Northland will assume total responsibility for the building paying for any and all losses , and will keep any profits . In December 2007 , the arena ' s naming rights were sold to XL Capital insurance company . The Veterans Memorial Coliseum . The Coliseum is the full - time home of the Hartford Wolf Pack AHL hockey team and part - time home of the University of Connecticut men ' s and women ' s basketball teams . It was the home of the New England / Hartford Whalers of the WHA and NHL from 1975 - 1978 and 1980 - 1997 and the New England Blizzard of the American Basketball League from 1996 - 1998 , and hosted occasional Boston Celtics home games from 1975 - 1995 . It was the home of the New England Sea Wolves of the Arena Football League . The arena seats 15 , 635 for ice hockey and 16 , 294 for basketball , 16 , 606 for center - stage concerts , 16 , 282 for end - stage concerts , and 8 , 239 for 3 / 4 - end stage concerts , and contains 46 luxury suites and a 310 - seat Coliseum Club , plus 25 , 000 sq . ft . of arena floor space , enabling it to be used for trade shows and conventions in addition to concerts , circuses , ice shows , sporting events and other events . As originally built in 1975 , it seated 10 , 507 for hockey , and served as the home of the then - New England Whalers for three years . On the evening of January 18 , 1978 , just hours after the University of Connecticut Men ' s Basketball team defeated the University of Massachusetts ; the weight of snow from the day ' s heavy snowstorm was too much for the Civic Center roof to withstand and it collapsed . There were no injuries . The building was heavily renovated and re - opened January 17 , 1980 . The building hosted the 1986 NHL All - Star Game . Possible new arena . With the XL Center approaching its 30th birthday leaders in Hartford have been considering whether it should be replaced with a new facility . In 2006 , developer Lawrence Gottesdiener began lobbying to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins and move them to a new Hartford arena , but the Lemieux Group was reluctant to sell . The Penguins bid was officially off the table in March 2007 , when the team announced that they were beginning construction on a new arena and that they signed a 30 - year deal with the city of Pittsburgh to keep the team there well into the future . Penguins owner Mario Lemieux even admitted at the arena ' s ground - breaking ceremony that relocating the franchise was never a possibility , but instead it was a negotiation tactic to help the team get funding for the arena from both state and local officials . After the Pittsburgh bid fell through , Gottesdiener made another bid for the Nashville Predators franchise with the hope of bringing them to Hartford . That bid was lost in August 2007 , as the Predators ownership ultimately decided to sell to a local holding company that would keep the team in Nashville . Since that time , Mayor Eddie Pérez and House Speaker James Amann have continued to investigate the feasibility of a new downtown arena , with Mayor Perez making statements to tear down the XL Center and replace it with the new arena as recently as March 2008 . The current lease for the XL Center runs until 2013 . After that , the facility must be turned over to the city of Hartford . By that point , the city wants to decide whether the building can be refurbished or if it has enough financial support to build a new arena . Mayor Eddie Perez met with a newly formed task force of city business leaders to determine the benefits of building a new arena . " In order to consider the new arena , we have to find out where the corporate support is for a new arena and that ' s the charge I gave the task force , " Perez said . " My hope is that by late September of this year , they can give me an idea where the corporate support would be and how we can go about organizing that support . " The mayor said that he feels the city needs a new arena to attract more events and possibly a professional sports franchise . " For a region to survive , you need a dynamic urban center and entertainment is part of a dynamic urban center , " said Oz Griebel of the Metro Hartford Alliance . " If you ' re going to offer entertainment venues , whether they be basketball games , hockey games , rodeos , concerts , you have to have a venue that people are going to want to come to . " Perez said he thinks a new arena could bring about 1 , 500 new jobs to the city . However , talks of a new arena have been dying since late 2007 , and an NHL franchise looks unlikely for the foreseeable future . In 2013 the debate of renovating or building a new facility came up again as $ 35 million was spent to upgrade some of the public areas ( concourses ) , which was admittedly a stop gap measure . The hopes of an NHL team returning to Hartford was raised in 2015 when the NHL announced it was opening the process of expansion . The future of the Hartford Wolfpack was mentioned as being bleak as the most probably scenario has the New York Islanders relocating their AHL affilated to a reovated Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum sometime around 2018 . But in order for this to be done they would have to find another team to move in to the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport , Connecticut . This would allow the site in Hartford to be demolished and have a new arena built on the site of the now 40 plus year old building . With this time frame the city of Hartford would be out of the running for an expansion team which the NHL was leaning towards having start play in 2017 - 18 , but would open the door for a relocated team or a possible second tier of expansion by the NHL ( as the NHL has a history of doing multiple expansions in short order ) in time for either the 2020 - 21 or 2021 - 22 seasons . The other major tenant in the arena is the University of Connecticut basketball teams ( men and women ) . The city has stated that a new location for an arena is not an option at this point as a new minor league baseball park is being constructed nearby ( ground was broke in early 2015 ) and that the present site would be the most feasable as relocating would leave a " big gaping hole downtown . "