Montreal Forum: Inside the Legendary Arena That Shaped Hockey History

What the Montreal Forum Is Today

Walk past the corner of Sainte-Catherine Street West and Atwater Street, and the Montreal Forum announces itself with its low, curved facade and the faded scale of a building that was once the emotional center of an entire city. Officially designated the Montréal Forum National Historic Site of Canada by Parks Canada, the Forum stopped functioning as an arena in 1996. This is a converted entertainment complex: a Cineplex multiplex cinema occupies much of the interior, with the former arena no longer operating as a sports venue.

This is not a hockey museum and it is not a shrine you walk through with a guided audio tour. If you arrive expecting the smell of ice and a gallery of championships, you will be disappointed. What you will find is a building with genuine historical weight, some permanent commemorative elements in public corridors, and an honest sense of how cities adapt beloved spaces to economic realities. For the right kind of visitor, that tension is itself interesting.

A History Worth Understanding Before You Arrive

The Forum opened in 1924, originally constructed for the Montreal Maroons; the Canadiens became tenants in 1926 and remained there until 1996. The building was expanded and rebuilt over time, including major work in 1968, and became one of the most significant venues in Canadian hockey history.

The Forum was also the site of events that reached far beyond hockey. The Richard Riot of March 1955, triggered by the suspension of Canadiens star Maurice Richard, began inside the building and spilled into the streets of Montreal, becoming a flashpoint in the complex relationship between French-Canadian identity and English-speaking NHL ownership. The building witnessed concerts, boxing matches, political gatherings, and cultural moments that accumulated meaning across generations.

When the Canadiens moved to the Bell Centre in 1996, the Forum was redeveloped into its current commercial form. The conversion preserved the exterior shell while gutting the interior entirely. For deeper context on how the Forum fits into Montreal's broader architectural legacy, the Montreal architecture guide places it alongside the city's other structurally significant buildings.

What You Actually See Inside

The public corridors on the ground level display commemorative plaques, historical photographs, and some original artifacts embedded into the walls and floor. The most visible tribute is a large mosaic on the floor near the main entrance, referencing the Canadiens' championship history. The corridor walls carry black-and-white photographs from different eras of the building's life, including images of capacity crowds, championship celebrations, and the arena in its prime configuration.

The scale of the former arena is suggested rather than experienced. You can sense the footprint, and the ceiling heights in some transitional spaces give away the building's original proportions, but there is no viewing platform or preserved section of seating. The ice surface, the penalty boxes, the press gallery, all of it is gone. What replaces it is a standard multiplex layout, functional and entirely ordinary.

The most atmospheric time to visit the public areas is a weekday morning, when foot traffic is minimal and you can move through the corridors without competition for wall space. By late afternoon and weekends, the cinema crowds make the commemorative areas harder to appreciate.

Getting There and Moving Around

The Atwater métro station on the Green Line is beside the Forum, at the corner of Sainte-Catherine and Atwater streets. From the station, the Forum is a short walk away.

Several STM bus routes run along Sainte-Catherine Street West, which is one of downtown Montreal's principal east-west corridors. If you are orienting yourself within downtown Montreal more broadly, the Forum sits at the western boundary of the main commercial strip, about a 15-minute walk from the heart of the shopping district near Peel and McGill stations.

If you have specific accessibility requirements, confirm directly with the venue or Cineplex before your visit, as conditions can vary by event configuration.

The Cinema and Events Side

Cineplex operates a cinema at the Forum. Check Cineplex directly for current showtimes and ticket pricing, as these change frequently.

The complex occasionally hosts live events, comedy performances, and special screenings. During major cultural periods in the city's calendar, the Forum can take on a livelier character. Outside of those periods, it functions mostly as a quiet retail and cinema block.

If you are building a broader downtown itinerary, the Forum pairs naturally with a visit to Atwater Market, which is a short walk southwest along the canal, or with the stretch of Sainte-Catherine West toward the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, about ten minutes east on foot.

Who Should Visit and Who Should Skip It

Hockey fans with a strong sense of the sport's history will find the Forum worthwhile, even in its current state. The building carries genuine weight for those who understand what happened inside it, and the commemorative corridor elements reward people who arrive with some background knowledge rather than expecting everything to be explained on-site.

Architecture enthusiasts interested in adaptive reuse will find the Forum a useful case study. The conversion is not celebrated or particularly elegant from the inside, which is itself instructive. Seeing what was kept and what was lost tells a story about how Canadian cities value, or fail to value, their sporting heritage.

Travelers who want a fully curated hockey experience should instead visit the Bell Centre, the Canadiens' current home, which offers organized tours with proper exhibition space. Those interested in Montreal's broader cultural and historical depth will find that the Pointe-à-Callière Museum provides a far more structured and rewarding experience of the city's past.

Visitors expecting a proper heritage attraction with interpretive programming, guided tours, or ticketed exhibitions should skip the Forum entirely. It is not that kind of place. Families with young children who are not specifically interested in hockey history will find little to hold attention here beyond a cinema outing.

Photography and Practical Notes

The exterior offers the best photography opportunities. The south-facing Sainte-Catherine facade is well-lit from mid-morning through early afternoon. The curved brick and the marquee details photograph well from across the street, and the Atwater Street corner gives you a sense of the building's full footprint. Overcast days reduce harsh shadow lines on the facade, which works in your favor here.

Inside, lighting is standard commercial interior lighting, which is flat and uninteresting for photography. The commemorative floor mosaic at the entrance is the most photogenic interior element. Shoot it from above if you can find a slightly elevated position on the escalator.