Binghamton, New York

Binghamton, New York doesn’t provide a lot of options when it comes to professional sports but the city does pretty much have the full year covered between Eastern League baseball and AHL hockey.

Binghamton Mets

The Binghamton Mets have played AA ball out of the Eastern League since 1987. The franchise has been affiliated with the New York Mets since 1992. Between 1987 and 1991, the team’s affiliation belonged to the Cleveland Indians then Seattle Mariners. Previous to 1992, the team was known as the Bills.

The Mets play out of the 6,012 seat NYSEG Stadium in downtown Binghamton, a venue that was completed for the 1992 season. Although, they have not had a winning season since 2008, the team has won two league championships, 1992 and 1994. The Mets finished first during the regular season twice, 1994 and 2000.

Although the Mets are a relatively new franchise, history of minor league baseball dates back to 1877 in Binghamton.

Binghamton Senators

The Binghamton Senators have played out of the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena since the 2002-03 American Hockey League season. The Senators are the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators and are also affiliated with the Elmira Jackals of the ECHL.

Despite only making the post season once since 2004-05, the Senators made it count in 2010-11 winning the Calder Cup championship with a 4-2 victory over the Houston Aeros in the final series. In their first season, they reached the conference finals before being eliminated by the Hamilton Bulldogs.

Notable Binghamton Senators single season performances include a team record 117 points by Jason Spezza during the 2004-05 season. On a notorious level, Brian McGrattan sat out 551 minutes in the penalty box in 2004-05, an American Hockey League record.

The Broom County Veterans Memorial Arena seats 4,710 for hockey and has been around since 1973. The venue was first occupied by the Broome Dusters of the North American Hockey League. The Dusters called the arena home for the four year existence of the NAHL from 1973-74 to 1976-77. For the 1977-78 hockey season, the Binghamton Dusters competed in the AHL but were the incarnation of the Providence Reds. The Reds date back to 1926 in the AHL and are now the current Connecticut Whale.

Binghamton is a city in New York state, located just north of the border with Pennsylvania. The population of the city proper is around 47,000 with a metro population of around 250,000. The city of Binghamton is on the shrink, having once had a population over 80,000 in the 1950’s.