Ohio State took down the scoreboard at St. John Arena last week due to a lack of athletic competitions and operational issues with the scoreboard, but that is expected to be the last change at the historic venue for the foreseeable future.
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told Buckeye Sports Bulletin that no plans are in the works for St. John Arena – which currently houses workout facilities and offices, as well as the locker room for the women’s hockey program, and serves as the location for the football teams Skull Sessions – beyond utilizing the space as it currently stands.
“Really no plans beyond making it the best workout facility that we could possibly have,” Smith said. “Many of our Olympic sports, our men’s and women’s track team, women’s ice hockey team, our swimming programs are the ones who use it the most, (so) making that a really good weight room like it has been the last couple years.”
Smith said the scoreboard needed to come down due to the difficulty of finding parts, which was made a challenge after White Sign Company, which installed the scoreboard in 1987, went out of business in 2014. But despite the scoreboard coming down, Smith said there are no plans for any further changes – including the potential for taking down St. John Arena – in the near future.
“We just needed to take that scoreboard down instead of keeping chasing parts, and asking my teammates to try and find parts to make the thing work made no sense anymore when the company has gone away, so we took it down,” he said. “But there’s no definitive plans. We’ll still hold Skull Session in there. Taking St. John down is a long ways away.”
