XL Center - (Formerly Hartford Civic Center) Events  •  Hartford  •  Ticket Broker

Formerly known as the Hartford Civic Center, the XL Center is a convention and sports venue situated in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. The City of Hartford owns the center. The Northland Investment Corporation/Anschutz Entertainment Group is the operator. The complex is the 28th largest among all college basketball arenas. The arena was originally constructed in the year 1975 and provides two facilities, which are the Exhibition Center and the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The center has a capacity of 16,294 seats for basketball and 15,635 seats for ice hockey. It features a 310-seat Coliseum Club, 46 luxury suites and other amenities. The building was renovated and it re-opened in the year 1980.

The CDA debated on who would run the center from the year 2007-08 to the year 2012-13. Some of the applicants who applied were former Hartford Whalers owner Howard Baldwin and arena manager Global Spectrum, Northland Investment Corp. and arena manager Anschutz Entertainment Group

Madison Square Garden. Later on it was decided that the Northland/Anschutz Entertainment Group would manage the complex. In December of the year 2007, XL Capital insurance company bought the center’s naming rights, therefore the name XL Center.

The arena is home to the University of Connecticut men's and women's basketball teams and the Hartford Wolf Pack AHL hockey team. Earlier it was home to the New England Sea Wolves of the Arena Football League, the New England/Hartford Whalers of the WHA and NHL and the New England Blizzard of the ABL. The center has played host to several events that includes the year 1982 Big East Conference, 1988-1990 America East Conference men's basketball tournaments, NCAA women's basketball sub-regional and regional, WrestleMania XI, No Way Out 2000 and Vengeance 2004 among others. The XL Center has conducted many popular concerts of artistes like Van Halen, Brooks & Dunn, U2, Elton John, Journey, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Nine Inch Nails, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen among others.