By MATT VAUTOUR
You’ll notice as you walk into the Mullins Center that the NCAA, Atlantic 10 and Hockey East banners, which used to hover over the playing surface, are now on the southwest wall.
It’s not their permanent home.
According to athletic director Ryan Bamford, the Mullins Center is replacing or removing the batten — the poles, wires and pipes etc. just inside the arena’s roof.
Bamford hopes to have a center-hung scoreboard in the building before the 2017-18 hockey and basketball seasons.
“The batten system is antiquated and most of it doesn’t work. They’re replacing that whole system up top. They’re not sure if that’s going to happen during the winter season or in the spring,” Bamford said. “The goal eventually is to get a center-hung scoreboard within the next year. It’ll hopefully happen before the 2017-18 basketball-hockey season.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage