Our "tour" of lost pro sports venues continues with another stop in the Keystone State, this time for a loving look back at the life and times of Pittsburgh's legendary Civic Arena - aka "The Igloo" - with Steel City native Dave Finoli (editor, "Pittsburgh's Civic Arena: Stories from the Igloo").

Originally constructed in 1961 for the city's Civic Light Opera, the Arena was an ahead-of-its-time architectural marvel - distinctively adorned by a massive 3,000-ton retractable steel-roof dome that was world's first of its kind - making not just an attractive venue for music and entertainment, but big-time sports of all kinds.

Over time, the Igloo became synonymous with its longest-running tenant - the NHL's Penguins - who became the building's main occupant as an expansion franchise in 1967, and saw three (of its total five) Stanley Cup title runs.

But, of course, we remember the other teams that also called the Civic Arena home - including: basketball's Rens, Pipers & Condors; World Team Tennis' Triangles; soccer's Spirit & Stingers; arena football's Gladiators; lacrosse's Bulls & CrosseFire; and even roller hockey's oft-forgotten Phantoms.

And don't forget Dr. J's Pisces too!

Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena: Stories From the Igloo - buy book here

Spirit 78-79 Home Dave MacKenzie, Warmup.JPG

Pittsburgh-based The Athletic sportswriter Stephen J. Nesbitt (“How the Pipers, Condors and Pro Basketball in Pittsburgh Went Extinct”) joins to help us dig into the surprisingly rich (though mostly woeful) history of professional hoops in the Steel City.

Though the game has long thrived at the collegiate level (Pitt’s Panthers began playing in 1905; the Duquesne Dukes in 1914), the city’s record of success at the pro level has been distinctly more fleeting. In fact, some would argue it was never better than the pre-integration Black Fives era of the 1910s/20s, when eventual Naismith Hall of Famer Cumberland Posey led his Monticello (1912) and Loendi Big Five (1919-23) clubs to five “Colored” Basketball World Championships.

As professional (and eventually integrated) leagues took root in the decades that followed, Pittsburgh’s attractive demographic profile made it a natural choice for inaugural – yet ultimately short-lived – franchises in virtually every major hardwood circuit that came calling, including:

The never-playoff-qualifying Pirates (1937-39) and re-born Raiders (1944-45) of the NBA-precedent National Basketball League;
The lamentable Ironmen (1947-48) of the NBA tributary Basketball Association of America;
The Connie Hawkins-led Renaissance (“Rens”) of the one-and-a-half-season (1961-62) American Basketball League; and especially;
The head-scratching Pipers of the legendary American Basketball Association – who, despite winning the league’s first championship behind regular-season and playoff MVP Hawkins in 1968 – relocated to Minneapolis, moved back to Pittsburgh, and finally re-branded as the “Condors” for two forgettable last seasons (1970-72).

With a checkered pro history like that, it’s little wonder that the basketball team most memorably associated with the City of Bridges wasn’t even a real club – the Pittsburgh Pisces (née Pythons) of the 1979 sports/disco fantasy cult film classic The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.