Northeastern women’s hockey had been playing at Matthews Arena since before there was even a Northeastern women’s hockey team.
It spent its first two full seasons there as a non-varsity club from 1978 to 1980. However, before the club was even established, Chris Yannetty and Donna Sorrentino, the eventual founding team captains, organized a scrimmage against Boston State College in March of 1977 with just three days of practice under their belts.
In rapid fashion, the women’s hockey program began to skyrocket.
Just two years later, Matthews — known as Boston Arena at the time — was the inaugural venue for the women’s Beanpot in March 1979. Northeastern’s young squad took home the first trophy behind the MVP performance of junior goalie Diane DerBoghosian, who allowed just one goal over the 120 minutes she played through the weekend. At the time, the men’s hockey team had not yet won a Beanpot, even though the trophy had existed for 27 years at that point.
The women’s team won it at Matthews on their first try. They weren’t even a varsity program yet.
“We were the underdogs,” DerBoghosian said. “We were the last to join the other three schools to form the Beanpot… We came out of nowhere, and we won it. We had a very successful season. We went 10-4-1; we were fourth in New England. And we started getting noticed.”
Back in the era of selling buttons and hosting bake sales to afford practice ice and transportation to away games, the amount of recognition that the first Beanpot brought to the program was a game-changer. It put Northeastern women’s hockey on the map, and not long after, the club officially became incorporated as a varsity team.
Matthews Arena was, fittingly, also home to Northeastern’s first-ever varsity game, a rousing 11-1 victory over crosstown rival Boston University on Nov. 15, 1980.
It was only right that the final collegiate women’s hockey game to ever be hosted at the historic venue was against Northeastern’s other local foe, the Boston College Eagles, Dec. 6, 2025.
And in true storybook fashion, it took a game-winning goal in the waning moments of the finale to give the Huskies a 3-2 lead, off the stick of none other than the current Northeastern senior captain, Lily Shannon.
Wearing a patch depicting the logo representing Matthews’ final season proudly on her chest, Shannon gave a shining goodbye to the first home of Northeastern women’s hockey and a building that has deep family ties.
“My grandfather, when he was younger, was in public elementary school,” Shannon said. “They went on a field trip to Matthews Arena, and he was skating on the ice with all of his buddies… the fact that we’re skating the same ice, even though it’s not the same level, it’s a special bond that I have with him.”
Shannon honored her late grandfather’s memory in her game-winning moment, a fitting cap on the program’s time at Matthews. And when it comes to personal connections to the rink, she’s certainly not the only one.
“[Matthews] is a special place that has a significant meaning to a lot of people,” said Northeastern head coach Dave Flint. “I remember my first day on the job. The old manager of the rink, he called me… This was summertime, so there was no ice, and he goes, ‘Meet me at center ice.’ He introduced himself and he gave me a Reader’s Digest version of how special the arena was and how much history was there, so I knew day one on the job.”
Alumnae young and old graced the stands in the final game, including Patty Kazmaier Award winners, Professional Women’s Hockey League athletes, and countless Olympians. It was a culmination of Northeastern women’s hockey — past, present, and future — all summed up into one final shining moment for the forever home of the team.
Florence Schelling, Northeastern’s All-American goaltender from 2008 to 2012, Olympic bronze medalist with the Swiss national team, and the latest member of the IIHF Hall of Fame, was granted the honor of the ceremonial puck drop for the finale at Matthews.
As Schelling looked around the barn, she took pride in seeing the building packed to the brim with support for the team.
“Northeastern is a school that players want to come to, be that Canadians, be that Americans, be that international players,” Schelling said. “I think when I came here, I was part of that transition into the new era of Husky hockey here. Looking at what the program has now, it’s absolutely amazing. I’m looking forward to every game, every season, and seeing how good the team keeps developing.”
And how does Matthews tie into that?
“It’s home,” Schelling said. “Walking into the locker room, that feeling; the locker room to me was almost like a living room… knowing this is home, this is where you meet your friends, your teammates, this is where you make memories.”
Flint recalled the fanbase in his early years after he joined Northeastern in 2008, Schelling’s first season with the team. He pioneered a new era of women’s hockey at Northeastern, and he saw firsthand the way support ballooned as the team found success at Matthews.
“It’s such a great atmosphere,” Flint said. “Our fans are so great. I think back when I first started, Nathan Vaughan [Northeastern Class of 2012] was the DogHouse. As we got better and better, the following started, and it just really started to grow. That’s home ice advantage, when you have a great fan base and a lot of people cheering you on. It’s been great, and I think a big part of our success.”
The massive fan support in the building was felt more as the crowd roared to its feet following Shannon’s late-game winner. The crowd had been bubbling all game, oohs and ahhs echoing throughout the old structure of Matthews as the Huskies knocked away at the doorstep. The sheer volume in the building was more than enough to issue decibel warnings on everyone’s smartwatches, let alone the pop after Shannon finally broke through.
“A big reason why I picked Northeastern is because of the arena,” Shannon said. “I think just the atmosphere in the DogHouse is electric. … Every time we have a game in there and the DogHouse is packed, and we’ve got the band going, it just gets us pumped up. We feel like we can do whatever we want out there.”
The legacy of Northeastern women’s hockey at Matthews was not necessarily a burden of sorts for Shannon and the current team to shoulder, but it was certainly on their minds. The pressure was certainly present, but not in a way that brought them down.
Instead, it lifted them up.
“Just having the patch on our jersey is a little reminder that the team that’s in the locker room right now is gonna be the last team that steps on the ice,” Shannon said. “We’re not just playing for that team, but also all the teams that came before us and all the women that came before us. Every time we step on that ice at Matthews Arena, we always think about those people and the team.”
The final victory at Matthews symbolized generations of Husky hockey coming together one final time in celebration of a program that has seen so much throughout its history. After the buzzer sounded, decades of alumnae swarmed the ice, creating one final memory in the building that had been with the program through it all.
“You want to look back 10, 20, 30 years from now and vividly remember that moment,” Flint said. “It doesn’t always happen that you get to create memories like that. Matthews Arena has given a lot to the sport of hockey, and we want to send the arena out the right way.”
From a scrappy upstart to a now-powerhouse program, Matthews Arena was home from start to finish. It hosted an end befitting of a venue so monumental, so integral to the building of the Northeastern women’s hockey program, a memory that all Huskies, from the pioneers to the current stars to the future athletes that could have been sitting in the stands that night, will cherish forever.
The deconstruction crew has begun its work to tear Matthews down brick by brick, but the destruction of the building can never take away from what it held.
That’s what will survive the demolition: the people, the bonds, the legacy. From DerBoghosian’s first Beanpot stand to the countless Hockey East titles the women’s program has earned to Shannon’s final goal on the same ice her grandfather skated on during his field trip all those years ago, they’re all connected by something that will exist long after the last brick falls.
These moments will soon be out of physical reach, preserved only in memory. And that makes them just that much more sacred.
In a few years, something new will exist where Matthews does now. Future Huskies may skate on a different surface, in a different arena, but they’ll still do it on the corner that held everything Matthews created.
Whatever rises there next will stand on the same ground that held countless championships, that connected a grandfather to his granddaughter across decades, that turned a club team into a powerhouse. The place, the sentiment, the memories endure, even when the building cannot.
Daisy Roberts is a hockey, basketball, and baseball broadcaster and writer for WRBB Sports. She has been covering Northeastern Athletics for five years. You can read her content here and follow her on X here.