PPL Center

^{March 23, 2019
PPL Center (Capacity: 8,420)
Allentown, PA
Lehigh Valley Phantoms vs WB/Scranton Penguins
Final Score: 4 – 5 (OT)}

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During the 2000s, this part of the country saw the arrival of Triple-A baseball with a Philadelphia affiliation. Not long after, the same happened with hockey in the form of a new downtown arena. The Lehigh Valley is made up of three cities in the eastern part of Pennsylvania and the anchor city is Allentown. With a population of 118,000, it is the state’s third largest. Allentown has a similar history to many other Northeast cities: A successful start because of manufacturing and industrial work (iron products in this case). Then a downturn in the 1960s and 70s followed by attempted revitalization. The PPL Center was completed in 2014 and it featured controversy as the most expensive minor-league arena ever built ($200+ million) and use of eminent domain. However, it has led to impressive development of a previously not-so-active area that is now full of foot traffic, while turning downtown into a visible and more enticing place to live. In terms of sports, the Phantoms moved to town from Glens Falls and they won their first division title while in the LV last season. They reached the conference finals in the playoffs. The team is supported well and the PPL Center is nice, but with flaws.
Prestige Ranking: 3.5 out of 5

Location

The arena is in the Hamilton District, or “Center City” as the locals call it. They didn’t build just the arena as connected buildings make up One City Center, a mixed-use complex that includes the Renaissance Hotel and a Fitness Center. There are also various store fronts inside the complex, including a few sports bars like Chickie’s and Pete’s. Also nearby are other recently built mid-rise buildings focused on office/retail. This immediate, new-ish area includes several food/drink establishments with the most popular pre-game destinations being Allentown Brew Works, Bell Hall and The Hamilton. From my perspective, Allentown doesn’t offer much of anything else as it is a place to come early to eat and go to a game, but it is not a place to spend the whole day in. You can try to time a visit to the rarely open Liberty Bell Museum and also spend a few minutes looking at the towering Soldiers & Sailors Monument. That’s about it in Center City. The America on Wheels museum is perhaps the best local attraction, which doesn’t say much. Developments from the growing downtown are impressive, but the drive in from the north is strange because the gleaming arena complex butts up with poor, dilapidated areas making for a stark difference. This is especially true on nearby Linden Street, which has a fair share of boarded-up building spaces.
Location Ranking: 6 out of 10

Accessibility / Parking

Coming from US-22, it takes about 10 minutes to get downtown from 7th Street and scenery on that ride includes signs in Spanish and cars unevenly parked on the sides, protruding a bit into your lane. I-78 is the other east-west connector into town and it takes a little more effort to reach Allentown from here. I-476 (NE extension) connects the Lehigh Valley with Scranton and Philadelphia. For parking, there is a lot of it and 3 garages are within a 5-minute walk to the arena. They have the exiting procedures down pat so it should not take long to head out of town.
Accessibility / Parking Ranking: 7 out of 8

Exterior

The arena itself gets lost in a sandwich of the several buildings that comprise One City Center. Corner entrances are the only arena portion visible and the primary one on Hamilton Street is a concave glass façade outlined in silver. Each opening for the arena is marked with a “PPL Center” so patrons know where to go in.
Exterior Ranking: 4.5 out of 10

Concourse

Entering the building early is odd because the main entrance has the metal detectors in the vestibule and then the ticket takers just past the second door. This creates an unnecessary logjam early and why there is not much room here is beyond me. This corner entry space provides a glimpse into the arena while to the right is a more open space that includes a concert stage and team store. The open space is deceptive as things jam up here too. This goes on to a traditional behind-the-seats concourse that is decorated in a warm, beige color and overhead cylinder lamps. An ice view is available, but you have to get quite close to the back seat row for a view. First period intermission brought a lot of bodies bumping into each other and the lines for the bathroom were expansive. Moving into the west end is a tight squeeze down a pseudo hallway and that brings fans to the narrow concourse behind the club section. This has a courthouse feel with the wood paneling (and law firm advertisement). It’s cool that you see Chickie’s and Pete’s on one side. but the forced looking at the exclusive club on the other side is insulting and a tease to the general fan. It would have been nice if there was a bar/public space for fans inside the building, not an hour experience in a separate restaurant. I appreciate the concourse being different, but the concept was odd in spots and had plenty of flaws that I would’ve preferred a more traditional/expansive space.
Concourse Ranking: 2 out of 5

Food

Food options include several choices throughout the concession stands and a couple specialized carts include BBQ plates and an arena produced food truck featuring a Pork Rice Bowl, Chicken Burrito and Fish Tacos. A Gyro cart is another tempting try. Good to see a cheesesteak stand as well given our proximity to Philadelphia. Expect plenty of options on the alcoholic side of things and while there are several choices for beer, I didn’t see anything quite local.
Food Ranking: 6.5 out of 8

Interior

What stands out at the PPL Center is the very nice set-up above the main oval lower bowl. On one side is stacked luxury seating and there is a lot of it. In addition to some bigger corner party suites, the main area is in the middle, where two decks of suite boxes sit above an expansive club level. Those with access are the only ones allowed into the lower center ice sections (113-117). Unfortunately, that means a good chunk of the arena is not open to the general public. One advantage of putting all this luxury seating together is that it allows the other side to have an upper deck for seating with a more optimal sightline. This upper deck extends to one other end of the building. While this portion of the seating offers a great view, seats in the top rows feel a lot further back than you would think for an arena with a capacity of 8,500 (especially compared to a similar-sized arena in Wilkes-Barre). Also, there are obstructions up here as dozens of seats have a multi-bar railing from the concourse entrance in the way of the ice view. That irks me given the age of the building. Seats have an optimal pitch in this second level and the pitch is shallower, but still pretty good in the lower level as there are no heads that get in the way (seats also go back further than you would expect for an arena this size). Row width is not great in the lower bowl and the odd placement of cup holders on the arms means this protrusion is easy to bump into while trying to squeeze by. The charcoal seats themselves are wide with a lot of cushion. The soft yellow tone of the visible walls continue on the inside, countering the black and orange team colors, leading to a mismatch in buildings vs team character.
Interior Ranking: 10.5 out of 14

Scoreboard

A beautiful center-ice display features four widescreen panels that have impeccable clarity. A ribbon board goes along the bottom and at the top, it says “PPL Center”. Replays were abundant, even for plays involving the visiting team. My lone complaint is the abundance of fan shots. Nearly every single break in play cut to fans in the crowd and it becomes such a distraction as many looked up in curiosity or eager anticipation if they were on. Fascia ribbon displays were also utilized.
Scoreboard Ranking: 3.5 out of 4

Displays

Even though the team has been in Allentown for five years, the Phantoms franchise is over 20 years old. There is a nice mural high on a concourse wall that highlights big-name past players and an image of the team hoisting the Calder Cup. Lacking are any other historical displays or memorabilia. There’s a team picture or two in the concourse and mascot meLVin has is image in large form plastered on a wall. Otherwise, pictures from past arena performances are the extent of the visual displays. There are eight banners in the rafters and they denote division, conference and regular season championships. The two Calder Cup championships do not stand out from the rest.
Displays Ranking: 3 out of 6

Cost

Parking is $6 and although the “Park Free” program says that many local restaurants will take that fee off your meal, I never got a stub from the attendant to take advantage of that. Tickets range from $21.50 to $36.50 with a small section of $15 seats and ones along the glass at $52. The online fee averages $5. These prices to attend are a bit above the league average. Food follows a similar price comparison as chicken tenders w/ fries is $8.25, hot dog is $4.50, bottled water $3.75 and a 16oz beer: $8.
Cost Ranking: 6 out of 8

Fan Support

Fan support is pretty good as the Phantoms are Top 10 in league paid attendance. In Year 5, that number has gone down a little, which is to be expected as the new shine wears off. Of course, like most teams, the announced attendance is a joke as the Saturday Night game we went to was laughingly announced a “sellout”, yet you can see from the photos, it is 70% full, at best. Having a huge club section for season-ticket holders guarantees a plethora of empty seats nightly. A more representative attendance is the playoff number and Lehigh Valley averages 6,500 in 9 total home games, good for 5th in the league. Media coverage is decent and the area has the luxury of getting all home games televised.
Fan Support Ranking: 6 out of 8

Atmosphere

Inside the PPL Center is an active, vocal bunch that makes for a lively building. Expect to see a lot of orange (both Flyers and Phantoms gear). Fans were on top of the action: booing bad calls, cheering PK dumps and sprinkling in a few “Let’s Go Phantoms” chants. The noise post-goal was nice and loud, though less than half got on their feet. In the third period, the energy faded and many headed for the exits around and after the 5-minute mark of a one goal game (a game vital to the team’s playoff hopes). One thing to listen for is the fans in Section 121: after a goal they have some sort of goalie sucks chant go on for a few minutes.
Atmosphere Ranking: 9 out of 14

Other Stuff

One of the coolest things I’ve seen in an arena in a long time is the Phantoms’ goal horn. It is the sound of a Mack Truck blowing its loud horn and if you look up into the ceiling, you’ll see the “Mack” logo on the horn. The trucking company was headquartered in Allentown for nearly a century…..I found the netting behind each goal harder to see through than normal. Could just be me, but it was enough to note…..The arena has a bit of a dark interior and during the pre-game and much of the intermission, the lights were kept very low……3 Zamboni’s! That’s a first for me!…..Before the game started, the videoboard had games like Word Reveal and Spot the Difference. Nice idea to keep fans interested while waiting (yet not enough to stop the glow of cellphones)…….It was freezing in here before the game started….In-game music was completely pop as organ play was absent.

Game

These two rivals gave us an entertaining matchup that featured goals, plenty of chances, a fight and late drama. Sam Lafferty got WBS on the board first, but it only took 28 seconds for the Phantoms to answer as Philip Samuelsson connected on a sweet one-timer. The Baby Pens scored the next two, the latter coming in the middle of the second after they put away a rebound after a spectacular save. LV came back with three unanswered and it looked like they were going to hang on as the third period saw a drop in the level in play. However, Lafferty got his hat trick on a game-tying goal by crashing the net with just 59 seconds left. In overtime, a horrible turnover by T.J. Brennan led to a Ryan Haggerty converted breakaway as the visitors won.

Stadium Experience Ranking: 67 out of 100