Vintage 1995 FleetCenter Opening Night Ticket ✨ "A Dream Come True" TD Garden, MA

Were You at the FleetCenter's First Night? 🎟️ The FleetCenter's Very First Night, Boston, 1995

Size: 5" x 2 1/4" ~ Little to no wear.

Vintage 1995 FleetCenter Commemorative Ticket, Opening Night "A Dream Come True," the arena we know today as TD Garden. This NOS unused stock ticket is a rare find with little to no wear, and it was a commemorative collectible for the opening of the FleetCenter.

Here's the fun part. Look at the seat on the stub: Section 9, Row 30, Seat 95. That's 9/30/95, the date of the show itself. Those numbers spell out opening night, because this one was made as a keepsake rather than for a real seat. Another printing of this ticket, with two seat stubs, carries a printed back that reads "Jordan Marsh welcomes another great Boston tradition!" That's Jordan Marsh, the Boston department store, welcoming the new arena. The front shows the brand-new arena rising between the downtown towers, with Opening in gold script over NIGHT, the red slogan banner, and the FleetCenter name and logo running up the purple end.

🏷️ Every Word on the Ticket

The back is plain white.

🎶 The Opening Gala

The Boston Phoenix listed it that very week: the FleetCenter Opening Gala, Saturday at 8 p.m., with live performances by James Taylor, Patti LaBelle, Keith Lockhart conducting the Boston Pops, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Boston Gay Men's Chorus, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan and others, with tickets from $30 to $125. The Pops' own program book for 1996 remembers Lockhart leading members of the orchestra during the opening celebration of Boston's new sports arena. What a lineup for the first night in a new building.

🏟️ From the Shawmut Center to the FleetCenter

Construction began on April 29, 1993, and the arena took 27 months and $160 million to build. It was supposed to open as the Shawmut Center, but Shawmut merged with Fleet Financial Group before it was finished, so it opened as the FleetCenter on September 30, 1995, sitting right on top of the MBTA's North Station. The Bruins played their first game there on October 7, 1995, a 4 to 4 tie, and the Celtics followed on November 3. In 2005 TD Banknorth bought the naming rights and it became TD Banknorth Garden, and in July 2009 it became plain TD Garden. Today it's the most visited sports and entertainment arena in New England, with nearly 3.5 million people through the doors every year.

🍀 Goodbye to the Old Garden

The FleetCenter was built to replace the old Boston Garden, which opened on November 17, 1928 as "Boston Madison Square Garden," the work of boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who also built New York's Madison Square Garden. It sat above North Station too, and for decades it was home to the Bruins and the Celtics. The last official game there was the Bruins against the Devils on May 14, 1995, and the old Garden held its farewell on September 29, 1995, the night before this ticket's opening night. It stood right next door until it was torn down in 1998.

🖼️ Display

A ticket like this looks great framed with a Bruins or Celtics piece, or next to a photo of the old Garden. It's a little slice of Boston history from the one weekend the city said goodbye to one arena and hello to the next.