Seating

Unlike most North American arenas, which have generally been designed by Populous and its predecessors, the Bell Centre was designed by a local consortium, and has many unique design features. The grandstands are sloped steeply to improve sight lines. Washrooms on the 100 level are centralized on a specific lower level located at each end.

Bell Centre is arranged in a three-tier layout: The lower 100 section, commonly referred to as "the reds" since these seats are coloured red; the 200 section situated between the two levels of private and corporate boxes, known as "Club Desjardins" (which features premium amenities such as larger seats and free food and non-alcoholic drinks), and the upper 300–400 section.

The 300–400 section is divided into three zones by seat colour: white section rows AA–FF, the grey section rows A–D, and the blue section, labelled "400," and consisting of rows A–D. The ends of the 400 section are further divided into two more groups. At the end where the Canadiens shoot towards twice is the Coors Light Zone, featuring section cheerleaders and a band playing in the hallway. At the opposite end is the Family Zone, which features child-specific ticket prices and limited alcohol.

Seats behind the press gondola, in Sections 318, 319, and 320, feature their own scoreboards on the back of the gondola due to the normal scoreboard being blocked.

Interior

The Canadiens' locker room prior to being renovated.

After some early complaints of a generic feel, especially compared to the Forum, the Canadiens started to incrementally decorate the building with celebrations of the team's history, including a ring of players around the top level of seating. The Molson Ex Zone features a live band stage and its own red theme.

Ice hockey

The final two games of the three-game 1996 World Cup of Hockey championship series were held at Bell Centre (the United States won both games, defeating Canada in the series 2–1). Bell Centre was also host to two pool games in the 2004 World Cup of Hockey. The Bell Centre was the host of the 2009 NHL All-Star Game and hosted the 2009 NHL Entry Draft and 2022 NHL Entry Draft, the latter of which saw the Canadiens make the very first pick in the draft, which turned out to be Juraj Slafkovsky.^[19]

Montreal Canadiens home games have been consistently sold out since January 2004.^[20] Additionally, the Canadiens have among the top attendance figures in the NHL. For the 2009–2010 season, the Habs had the highest attendance played at their home arena.^[21] All 21,273 seats were sold in 45 minutes on May 12, 2010, for fans to watch the 7th game in the playoff series versus the Pittsburgh Penguins, which was shown on the big screens. Noise levels in the arena allegedly reached as high as 110 dB when goals were scored by the Canadiens, most notably, during the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, during Game #6 against the Pittsburgh Penguins on May 10, 2010,^[22] making it one of the loudest NHL arenas during hockey games.

On December 9, 2014, the Canadiens hosted the Vancouver Canucks, the first home game since the death of Jean Béliveau. The game was preceded by a memorial tribute to him. Bell Centre remained sold-out that night with 21,286 fans in attendance and one empty seat left for Mr. Beliveau, with the official attendance shortened by one to honour him.^[23]

Bell Centre hosted its first Stanley Cup Finals in 2021, with games three and four against the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning played inside the arena.^[24] The Canadiens were allowed to have 2,500 fans from May 29 to June 14, and later, 3,500 fans was allowed for the third round against the Vegas Golden Knights and the Stanley Cup Finals due to Quebec government public health restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec.^[25] The Canadiens had hoped to further increase their arena capacity limit to 50% of the arena's total seating capacity (10,500 people) for the Stanley Cup Finals, however, that request was denied by the Quebec government.^[26] While the arena's capacity was limited to 3,500 fans during the third round and the Final, thousands more fans gathered outside the arena to watch the games on a TV screen outside of the La Cage sports bar situated adjacent to the arena.

From September 26 to October 8, 7,500 fans were also allowed at Bell Centre for the pre-season games, and for the opening day on October 13, the Quebec government made new rules and stated that the Canadiens could return to its full capacity of 21,105 people.^[27]

Basketball

Bell Centre in a basketball configuration.

Since October 2010, Bell Centre has hosted selected NBA preseason games, primarily featuring the Toronto Raptors; the first was held on October 22, 2010, with the Raptors hosting the New York Knicks. It has since hosted preseason games as part of the NBA Canada Series, which have also included all-U.S. games.

Mixed martial arts

Bell Centre hosted UFC 83 in April 2008, marking the first UFC mixed martial arts event to take place in Canada. The main event was a rematch between Welterweight champion Matt Serra and Montreal native Georges St-Pierre.^[28] The tickets available to the public sold out in under one minute, and the event set the all time UFC attendance record, at that time (since surpassed by UFC 129 in Toronto).^[29] Other UFC events have subsequently been held at Bell Centre, including UFC 97, UFC 113, UFC 124, UFC 154 and UFC 158, the most recent three of which were headlined by St-Pierre.^{[30][31][32][33]}

Professional wrestling

Bell Centre has occasionally hosted WWE professional wrestling events, including four pay-per-views (Survivor Series in 1997, No Way Out in 2003, Breaking Point in 2009 and Elimination Chamber in 2023), as well as 11 broadcasts of Raw and 8 broadcasts of SmackDown. Elimination Chamber 2023 marked the first time that the Chamber structure was on Canadian soil and only the second time in history that the structure was outside of the United States, following the 2022 event that was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,^[34] and featured Laval native Sami Zayn competing in the event's main event match for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against Roman Reigns. In April 2019, Bell Centre hosted both Raw and SmackDown on consecutive nights for the 2019 Superstar Shake-up,^[35] the first time in WWE history that the event was held at an arena outside of the United States. On August 19, 2022, Bell Centre hosted the 1,200th episode in the history of WWE SmackDown.^[36]

During Survivor Series 1997, Bell Centre was the site of the infamous "Montreal Screwjob"—a match where Calgary-native Bret Hart controversially lost the WWF Championship to his rival Shawn Michaels. Hart had signed a contract to leave WWF for the rival World Championship Wrestling (WCW) the following month and did not want to lose a championship match to Michaels in his own country. The original plan was for the match to end by disqualification after a brawl between the wrestlers' allies, which would have allowed Hart to lose or vacate the championship at a later date before leaving the promotion. However, WWF owner Vince McMahon intervened without Hart's knowledge, and had the referee declare a Michaels victory by submission after performing a Sharpshooter on Hart, even though he had not actually submitted.^[37][38] Wrestling writer Mike Johnson considered the match to be "arguably the most talked-about match in the history of professional wrestling".^[39] Eight years later, in the same venue, Michaels cut his infamous "Who's your daddy, Montreal?" heel promo in the lead-up to his impending match with Hulk Hogan at SummerSlam 2005, where he referenced the Screwjob during his promo, receiving plenty of heat from the Montreal fans.^[40]

Brock Lesnar made his televised WWE debut at Bell Centre on the March 18, 2002 Raw after WrestleMania X8 in Toronto, interfering in the Hardcore match that was taking place between Maven and Al Snow.^[41] A wall on the concourse of the arena depicting iconic events that took place inside the arena includes Lesnar's debut among others.