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Rochester's convention center is centrally located and, true to its name, right on the river. It's connected via Skyway to the South Avenue Garage (and thus to the Hyatt Regency Hotel). It also connects via Skyway to the former Rochester Riverside Hotel, which will, with luck, reopen someday.
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hockey
Known fondly as the "Amerks", Rochester's storied hockey team is the AHL affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres. The Blue Cross Arena at the Rochester War Memorial is an old building, but it was renovated in the 1990s and is now a fine downtown hockey arena. One of the oldest and most successful teams in the league: hockey night in Rochester is still a fun time, especially in the playoffs.
lacrosse
The K-Hawks are a top-tier indoor lacrosse team, featuring some of the best talent in the world. If you've never seen an indoor lacrosse match, a National Lacrosse League game is a great introduction. The original Knighthawks won back-to-back-to-back NLL championships (2012–14) and had several future Hall-of-Famers on the roster, but all that left town for Halifax in 2019. The new team, which was created as an expansion team in 2019, is now owned (as of 2025) by the Seneca Nation of Indians. It's struggled to reach the same heights as the old team, but the fan base is returning and the results are improving.
There are some other bars and restaurants around that have a handful of board games for patrons to borrow, but it's safe to say no place has as huge a collection as Dice Versa, with over 300 games stacked on their shelves. True, you have to pay a cover charge to play games, but (during the week) you can game all day if you want (Friday and Saturday there's a 3-hour limit). The food (sliders, mac and cheese, flatbreads, and apps) is tasty and it's easy to eat way too much of it during a long gaming session. Their drink menu is also inventive and fun; try the Potion Shop, which lets you roll a 20-sided die to have fate choose the contents of your shot glass.
GLG
GLG has twelve high-end gaming PCs and three console couches in their gaming lounge, not to mention some great views of the city from high atop the former Xerox Tower.
The former Xerox Auditorium is adjacent to what used to be Xerox's world headquarters. Xerox Tower is now Innovation Square, and the auditorium—once used for board meetings and the like—is now a beautiful and intimate performance venue with very good acoustics. It seats 700 but feels like 300.
Nestled inside a cloverleaf onramp, in the shadow of the Frederick Douglass – Susan B. Anthony Bridge, the ROC City Skatepark finally opened in 2020 after more than 20 years of dreaming and over 12 years of actual planning and construction. The half-acre (2,000 sq m) park is designed for all types of wheeled sports from BMX to skateboarding to scooters, and the city hopes it serves as a big tourism draw for enthusiasts.