Berglund Center

The arena opened in October 1971 as the Roanoke Civic Center, one of three sports facilities built at the same time across Virginia — alongside the Scope in Norfolk and the Richmond Coliseum. Elvis Presley performed here in 1972, 1974, and 1976; he was scheduled to return in August 1977, one week after his death. The Grateful Dead played the venue three times: once in July 1974, then twice more, almost exactly thirteen years later, in July 1987. Roanoke was a railroad town before it became a city — the Norfolk and Western Railway chose the site in 1882, and within two years the population had multiplied twentyfold. The young boomtown needed civic infrastructure. Ninety years later, the civic center became that infrastructure: a 10,500-seat arena built to hold what a city of that scale attracts. From 1971 to 1972, it seated the Virginia Squires, an American Basketball Association franchise that played in four Virginia cities before folding in 1976. The Southern Conference men's basketball tournaments were held here from 1977 to 1981. Wrestling came through 251 times between 1975 and 2013, including WCW's Fall Brawl in 1994 and WWE's Monday Night Raw three times across two decades. When the Roanoke Dazzle, an NBA D-League franchise, and the Roanoke Valley Vipers hockey team both folded after the 2005–06 season, the arena had sixty open dates. Nearly two-thirds went to Virginia Tech, Radford University, and Roanoke College hockey clubs. In 2016, the Mississippi Surge relocated here and became the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs of the Southern Professional Hockey League. In May 2023, the Berglund Center — renamed in 2014 — hosted games three and four of the league finals. The Rail Yard Dawgs won both against the Birmingham Bulls, clinching their first championship on home ice. The complex includes an exhibit hall, a 2,440-seat theater used by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, and a 46,000-square-foot special events center added in 2007. The main arena has 8,372 permanent seats and a floor that measures over 20,000 square feet. Go when the Dawgs play. A minor-league hockey championship won at home is the exact occasion a civic center exists to hold.