HSBC Arena Now First Niagara Center

The Buffalo Sabres are changing the name of their home hockey arena.

After First Niagara Bank bought HSBC Bank branches in New York and Connecticut, the arena will be called First Niagara Center.

It had been HSBC Arena since 1999.

The 18,690-seat home of the National Hockey League club will bear the new name for 15 years.

Northrop Knox, chairman of HSBC’s upstate New York predecessor, Marine Midland Bank, and his brother Seymour brought NHL hockey to Buffalo in 1970.