The Carolina Coliseum is a 12,401 seat multi-purpose arena (for hockey, 6,231 seats as end seats are not used and seats are removed for the hockey surface) in Columbia, South Carolina. The largest arena in South Carolina at the time of its completion, it was the home of the University of South Carolina men's and women's basketball teams and Columbia's main events venue until 2002, when the Carolina Center, now Colonial Life Arena, opened across Assembly Street. It was home to the Columbia Inferno of the ECHL until poor ticket sales caused the Inferno to leave the Coliseum and plans to build an arena in Irmo collapsed as a result of the recession.