This month, a new facility opened in the Kansas City area- one that houses the Missouri Mavericks minor league hockey team. The venue is located outside of KC in Harry Truman’s stomping grounds- Independence, Missouri.

Full Disclosure: the staff contacted me directly and invited me to visit. I was not paid or compensated for my coverage and review of the event center.

I snapped a few photos of the facilities and shot a video blog. Both of which you should check out if you’re interested to see what it’s like. Here’s my video blog tour of the building:

Here are quick facts the Independence Event Center:

• The building holds 5,800 people, with 25 private suites
• The project cost $68 million to build (Sprint Center cost $276 million)
• Tickets to a Missouri Mavericks hockey game range from $12 – $35
• Free parking
• There are actually two ice rinks: 1 in the main building, 1 in the Community Ice building
• The building is multi-purpose; it’ll also be used for concerts and other events

During my visit I was a bit surprised in what I found (both in a good and bad way). Here are my thoughts on…

…the building and overall design and architecture:
If you’re driving on i-70 the Independence Event Center is right off the highway. But you could easily miss it if you’re not careful (i did). It sorta looks like a large hotel from the outside. In regards to scale, it’s not even close to the size of the Sprint Center, Kauffman or Arrowhead. Nevertheless, it’s certainly not ugly- it’s just not what you’d expect for a hockey arena. On the inside it’s pretty standard issue, no real surprises (no Dallas Cowboys jumbo-tron if you’re wondering).

…event seating:
General admission has cloth upholstered seats. The suites are leather. Also, there is NO bad seats anywhere in the venue. Seriously. (I even walked around to try to find one) It’s so small that you’ve got a great view from anywhere. I can already tell concerts will be great in this facility.

…there’s community ice skating!
There are two buildings. One is the main event center- and the other is “Community Ice”. Annnnnnd the ice skating is CHEAP! It’s only $8 to skate (includes skate rental). In addition to that, they’ll have lessons for ice skating (adult + kids) and hockey (adult + kids) and birthday party rentals. Furthermore, area high school hockey leagues and teams will be practicing and playing games at the facility.

The “Ramsey Blogger Bottom-Line Review”:
If you caught my Tweet when I was there- it can be summed like this simple as this: fun, cheap and easy. The prices + the experience = great. I know most residents are bummed we didn’t get pro hockey, but this certainly still a great addition to the Kansas City area. Add it to the list of “things-you-take-people-to-if-they-are-from-out-of-town-and-you’re-looking-for-things-to-do” I’m already making plans to both attend a couple games and also check out the ice skating with some friends soon.

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