Matthews Arena (formerly Boston Arena) is a multi-purpose arena in Boston, Massachusetts. It is both the oldest arena still in use for ice hockey and the oldest multi-purpose athletic building still in use in the world.It opened in 1910 on what is now the east end of Northeastern University's campus, and is currently owned by the university. It is the original home of the National Hockey League (NHL) Boston Bruins the only team of the NHL's Original Six whose original home arena still exists for the sport of ice hockey at any level of competition and the WHA New England Whalers (now the NHL Carolina Hurricanes), as well as the secondary home of the NBA Boston Celtics.

Today, Matthews Arena is home to the Northeastern Huskies men's and women's ice hockey teams, and men's basketball team as well as various high school ice hockey programs in the city of Boston. Matthews Arena also hosts a variety of Northeastern on-campus events, including the annual Springfest concert, as well as graduation ceremonies for the university.

The closest MBTA station is the Massachusetts Ave Orange Line subway station; the Green Line E branch's underground Symphony station is two blocks northwest.

Ice hockey is a contact winter team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a "puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender.

Ice hockey is one of the sports featured in the Winter Olympics while its premiere international amateur competition, the IIHF World Championships, are governed by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for both men's and women's competitions. Ice hockey is also played as a professional sport.

In North America and some European countries the sport is known simply as "hockey" in common parlance. However, in many countries, "hockey" usually refers to field hockey, except in some Northern areas of Russia where bandy is still referred to as "Russian hockey" (русский хоккей) or "hockey with a ball" (xоккей с мячом), while ice hockey is called "hockey with a puck" (xоккей с шайбой). In 1994 ice hockey was officially recognized as Canada's national winter sport.The modern sport of ice hockey was developed in Canada, most notably in Montreal, where the first indoor game was played on March 3, 1875. Some characteristics of that game, such as the length of the ice rink and the use of a puck, have been retained to this day. Amateur ice hockey leagues began in the 1880s, and professional ice hockey originated around 1900. The Stanley Cup, emblematic of ice hockey club supremacy, was initially commissioned in 1892 as the "Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup" and was first awarded in 1893 to recognize the Canadian amateur champion and later became the championship trophy of the National Hockey League (NHL). In the early 1900s, the Canadian rules were adopted by the Ligue Internationale de Hockey Sur Glace, in Paris, France, the precursor of the International Ice Hockey Federation. The sport was played for the first time at the Olympics during the 1920 Summer Olympics.

While women also played during the game's early formative years, it was not until organizers began to officially remove body checking from female ice hockey beginning in the mid-1980s that it began to gain greater popularity, which by then had spread to Europe and a variety of other countries. The first IIHF Women's World Championship was held in 1990, and women's play was introduced into the Olympics in 1998.