Before it became known as Benchmark International Arena — or Amalie Arena, the Tampa Bay Times Forum or the St. Pete Times Forum — the Ice Palace opened in downtown Tampa on Oct. 12, 1996.
Not everyone was sure what to make of the roughly $160 million project at first. Local civic leaders, according to the St. Petersburg Times, saw the space as “the linchpin in revitalization efforts for a downtown waterfront.”
Others wondered how a 20,000-seat arena would impact the other venues around the region.
“Wait a sec. Didn’t we build the ‘premiere’ venue 16 years ago with the Sun Dome?” the Tampa Tribune wrote in November 1996. “Didn’t we top it in 1987 with the ultra-premier Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center?”
The venue would become the home of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the setting of their first Stanley Cup victory in 2004. It also hosted the Arena Football League’s Tampa Storm from 1997 to 2017. When COVID-19 emerged, the NBA’s Toronto Raptors played the 2020-21 season there. NCAA championships for both men and women came here. So did the 1999 NHL All-Star Game, which was the last for Wayne Gretzky.
Pop stars including Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande and Rihanna have graced the stage, as well as rock icons like Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Billy Joel and the Rolling Stones.
Here’s a look back at some of the other big pop culture moments at the arena.
The first concert ‘breaks the ice’
The Royal Hanneford Circus kicked off the opening celebrations for the Ice Palace in October. A month later, Melissa Etheridge would get the honor of headlining the first concert there.
More than 7,300 people came to see Etheridge on Nov. 2, 1996.
“All seats were priced at $40.75 — easily a third more than what top acts such as Hootie and the Blowfish and Alanis Morissette pried from Tampa Bay area fans’ wallets this year — and pre-concert scuttle reflected that disappointment,” the Times wrote.
Etheridge played for close to three hours. The singer got a big kick out of fans putting their lighters up in unison, the Times wrote.
“That’s the first official rock concert thing to be done here,” Etheridge told the crowd.
In the weeks to come, Rush and Neil Diamond would also play shows at the new venue.
A Beatle fell down into a big hole
In the 1960s, Paul McCartney wrote a Beatles song called “Fixing a Hole.”
And in 2005 in Tampa, he fell down one.
Early during his U.S. tour to promote his album “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard,” McCartney swung through what was by then called the St. Pete Times Forum. As a piano rose behind him, McCartney fell backwards into the trapdoor, plunging about five feet.
McCartney reportedly injured his elbow and back but kept rocking.
“There’s a big hole in the stage and I just fell into it,” he said. “We’ve been expecting this to happen. And it happened in Tampa!”
Twelve years later, McCartney would return to the arena — and reminisce about his tumble.
“You know that feeling of slow motion: I’m going down, there’s no going back,” he said at the show. “I’m lucky to be here tonight.”
John Cena broke the Bin Ladin news
In May 2011, wrestling superstar and Land O’Lakes resident John Cena won the WWE Championship at the St. Pete Times Forum. Still high off his victory, Cena prepared to address the audience. Then producers told him that members of the U.S. Navy’s Seal Team Six had killed Osama Bin Laden.
Cena stood on a table and shared the news in a now-viral moment.
“We have caught and compromised, to a permanent end, Osama. Bin. Laden,” Cena told the audience.
He gazed out into the crowd as a USA chant broke out.
Clint Eastwood talked to a chair at the RNC
Remember when actor Clint Eastwood baffled audiences across the world by hopping on the 2012 Republican National Convention stage and having a conversation with … an empty chair?
Of course, it happened at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.
Eastwood borrowed the chair from one of the arena’s VIP clubs. The performance, where he spoke to an invisible President Barack Obama in a rambling one-sided conversation, was apparently unplanned.
The political moment became a pop culture sensation, inspiring a deluge of memes and Tweets.
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus later snagged the famed chair from the arena and brought it back to his Washington, D.C. office to commemorate the occasion.
What are your favorite memories of Benchmark International Arena? Share your favorite wild moments in the comments.
