The Six Nations Memorial Sports and Cultural Centre is not that easy to find, and I, personally, would like to keep it that way. It's my favourite best-kept secret, and I would prefer that only those truly willing to make the effort actually find it. Celebrating its 25th year, it's a simple barn of a building, with some delightful features. On the penalty box side, the actual seats don't begin until row three. Coupled with the low glass, this results in the best low-angle unobstructed view in the entire league. The atmosphere is often low-key, but this place can ignite in a hurry. Lots of wonderful children running around at all times. The other huge advantage this building has is that lacrosse is historically a native game, and this is the league's only reservation building. A plaque outside commemorates the exploits of the great Tom Longboat. Another inside celebrates Ohsweken's own NHL legend, Stan Jonathan. The snackbar is well stocked. French fries are the specialty, but the line-ups get pretty long sometimes. The arena is also set in some dazzlingly beautiful country. Check out the Grand River on Highway 54 on your way down. For food, there's the Oasis in Caledonia,and Hewitt's Dairy Bar on Highway 6 north of Hagersville,home of the finest malted milkshakes in the land. I absolutely love this arena. It is my favourite place to watch a game, anywhere in the world. 
Ben Knight who has visited every OLA Jr "A" arena sends this review about the facilities that house the pride of our Junior teams.
Six Nations
The Iroquois Park Arena has undergone extensive renovations, and is now a six-sheet complex complete with its own food court. It's also the only OLA arena I know of with its own bank machine. This is handy, because Whitby itself is notoriously bad for quaint, inexpensive restaurants. The GearBox is a perfectly functional place to watch a lacrosse game, with plenty of seats and clear, unobstructed sightlines. What it lacks is charm. The atmosphere is either dead, or dangerously edgy. I'm sure I'm not the only Six Nations Arrows fan who was soured on the place by the nastiness that broke out there during last year's Ontario final. It would be nice if the Whitby Dunlops' world hockey championship banner could be rescued from the Hall of Fame and given place of pride in the rafters. Heck, it's a fine building, with great facilities. The parking's a little tight, but they're fixing that. The only reasons I don't like it are personal. Whitby
The Greenhouse, so named for its glass ceiling and sweltering summer temperatures. The Albert McCormack Arena is bright, modern, and looks like it was made out of Lego blocks. Comfy red plastic seats, but only on one side and they fill up quickly late in the season. Good program and snackbar, clear sightlines, good scoreboard that keeps a handy running total of shots on goal. A little hard to find in the baffling maze of streets that is North Waterloo, but clearly worth the effort. If the Braves ever make an Ontario final, this house will rock with the best of them. Kitchener-Waterloo
Just as I have a hard time explaining why I'm not crazy about the Whitby arena, it's not easy to explain why the odd, quirky, dark, uncomfortable swelter box that is the Burlington Central Arena is one of my favourites. I really have no reason to like this place, but there's something about it's tired, creakiness that gives it a kind of mythic, subterranean charm. Maybe it's the same reason I like old, out-of-the-way railway stations more than new, bright downtown ones. Avoid the hot dogs,unless you favour microwaved buns harder than the building's cracked concrete floor. The free program is a nice touch. In six years of going to games there, no one seems to have figured out how to use the P.A. system. Really not a good building, but I like it anyway. Burlington
The Bill Burgoyne Arena lies hidden behind a low hill in Port Dalhousie, just a short jump from the QEW/Ontario Street interchange. It looks very ordinary at first glance, but is, in fact, one of the strangest buildings in the league. I have to admit here that I don't like watching lacrosse through glass, which makes sitting down here a problem. Also, the buzzer is so excruciatingly loud that my buddies and I have taken to warning each other when it's coming, pausing our conversations and putting our fingers in our ears until it's over. Good snackbar, good program, good parking,and almost always a good effort by the home team. Good prominent display of championship banners as well. The Burgoyne has famously strange acoustics, and P.A. announcements are virtually inaudible over on the bench side. One of the best places in lacrosse to sit behind the visitors' bench. Just don't try to sit behind the St. Catharines' bench. That's not allowed. St.Catharines
The BunnyBarn. The Tony Rose arena is a corrugated metal shell that amplifies crowd noise to amazing levels when lacrosse history's being made on the floor. Nine or ten rows of gray bench seats, all on one side, offer a splendid view of the game. They hiked the price to six bucks this year, and when I asked why I was told that's what every team in the league is charging. That simply isn't even remotely close to being true. Like Six Nations, this is a building where you feel completely immersed in the community. The people watching here is splendid. One of the loudest and most loyal hometown crowds in lacrosse. As much as I'm not a fan of arena music, I have to concede that the guy who spins the disks here has interesting taste. He seems to have gotten the message about the volume, too. Snackbar has lots of neat stuff, including popsicles. Be warned, though, a single bag of BunnyBarn popcorn contains enough salt to de-ice the Don Valley Parkway for an entire winter. Great place to watch a game. Orangeville
After banging around three or four different arenas for years, the Jr. A Lakers finally have a permanent home at the new Evinrude Centre, nicknamed the Graveyard for the giant cemetary it appears to rise out of as you approach it from the south. Even after several visits, it's still hard to find the ticket seller when you enter the place. You climb a large, wide staircase with TV monitors in the walls (I watched some of last year's Stanley Cup that way), and are ushered into several rows of mezzanine seating. The view from the front row is unique to Jr. A, high up, thrust forward and highly recommended. There is an odd thing, though. When the team played at the nearby Memorial Centre, the building seemed cold and empty. By incorporating exactly the same shades of pale purple and murky green used in the big building, the creators of the Evinrude Centre have managed to capture this same emptiness and coldness in a much smaller and more intimate building. It's the darndest thing. But this is also the home of the most up-to-date and fact-filled program in Jr. A. And guess what? -- it's free. Peterborough
My apologies.I can't remember the exact name of the new arena in Rama. It's a wonderful Native name starting with a fabulous pile-up of consonants. The arena is not actually at the casino. It's about a quarter mile further up the road. It reminds me very strongly of the Evinrude centre in Peterborough, in that it's a brand-new building with a high ceiling and seating on only one side. The atmosphere is quite sterile, even with a good-sized crowd. Reatures a giant banner of a lion (the team's logo)that lights up and breathes smoke every time the home team scores. If only they could find a way to get in to inhale the smoke back if the goal gets wiped out on a crease call! Leave extra time if you're driving here, particularly if you're starting from a Toronto rush hour. Really has none of the atmosphere of the old barn downtown, but is a much more comfortable place to watch a game. Orillia
This Place. I'll start with the objective stuff. The Port Credit Arena is built right beside a GO station, features clear sightlines, a high arching roof and plenty of good seats behind both nets.Lots of vending machines, pretty good snackbar, lots of parking (but look out for foul balls hit off the diamond next door). Now the personal stuff. I hate this place. Earsplitting music assails you,and the building's strange, unmerciful proportions are every bit as uncomforting and distracting as Montreal's Olympic Stadium at its very worst. I've seen fights break out here where the victim was thrown out of the building and his assailant cheered. Gets quited brutally hot in the late summer, as well. I never look forward to games here, and avoid them whenever possible. I wish the Tomahawks all the best, but I would love to see this looming, ponderous misshapen atrocity put to sleep as quickly as possible. Mississauga
Ah, the vexed question of the Ted Reeve Arena. The sightlines never were very good, the seating area is small and cramped, and it's not an easy place to find for out-of-town supporters. Well,it's in mid- renovation now. They've raised the glass, which would normally restrict visibility, but the new glass is still so clear and unscuffed it's not really a problem. There's no concession stand at the moment, but the team was selling a good selection of snacks off a folding table at the entrance. The glossy, full-colour program is a thing of the past, as well -- but so are the army of program-selling children who used to stampede you the second you entered the place. The building still has lots of problems, but I find my fondness for old, downtrodden barns lets me get past them. Far from ideal, but not without its charms. Toronto
At time of writing, it is difficult to know what -- if any -- future the old Memorial Arena has. So let us stand as one and cheer one of the truly great barns in the history of the sport. Anytime you see a TV commerical shot in a wooden-roofed hockey rink, that's the Memorial Arena. An excellent book on small-town arenas, The Rink, by Chris Cuthbert and Scott Russell of Hockey Night in Canada fame, devotes its entire opening chapter to the Memorial Arena. Small, cramped, only three rows of seats, but all of those things contribute to incredible atmosphere when the joint is jumping. I've never cared much for the Excelsiors, but I always look forward to visiting this place. Don't miss the framed Excelsior jersey that used to belong to NHL referee and local lacrosse legend John McCauley. The Excelsiors are keenly aware of their history, of which this building is an irreplacable part. The entire Brampton Fairgrounds area is presently threatened with massive redevelopment, and a new arena is going up for the Brampton Battalion of the OHL, so who knows how much longer that astonishing ceiling of crosshatched wooden beams will continue to stand. Forever and ever, I hope. Brampton
Well, it's a little hard to get to from anywhere else in the league, but the Clearwater Arena is a nice place to watch lacrosse. Unobstructed sightlines, and a booster lounge built directly into the back boards, which affords a fine panoramic seond-floor view of the game. The home fans are supportive and enthusiastic, and I hope very much this year's winless season won't be the end of Jr. A lacrosse here. If you want to call yourself a serious lacrosse fan, this is one arena you have to visit. Sarnia
