[3] After 20 years, it was renamed the Hec Edmundson Pavilion on January 16, 1948,[4] honoring the university's longtime track and basketball coach.

[5] Hec Ed originally had glass skylights in its ceiling; during the state high school basketball tournament in 1938, one of these fell during a windstorm and injured two adults,[6][7] resulting in their permanent removal.

[9] After more than 71 years, the multi-purpose arena underwent a major renovation in March 1999, following the final home games of the basketball season.

[2][10] The east end of the building was sectioned off into a practice gymnasium and the main basketball court was moved 50 feet (15 m) west, enclosed by a tighter bowl of seats.

Another major improvement was the removal of the 20 view-obscuring support pillars in the upper level, replaced by two massive non-obscuring "super trusses," above and behind the sidelines.

Both are 243 feet (74 m) in length and painted yellow-gold, as are the supporting tri-leg columns in the arena's four corners, proudly exhibited in the concourses.

During the renovation, the Husky basketball teams were displaced for one season (1999–2000), and played their home games 5 miles (8.0 km) away at Seattle Center; the men at KeyArena and the women at Mercer Arena.

The Sonics had to play these playoff series at Hec Edmundson because both the Seattle Center Coliseum and the Kingdome were booked for other events.

The team originally planned to play the first ten games of its 2020 home schedule at Hec Ed, between May 15 and July 5, 2020, moving to Angel of the Winds Arena for the second half of the season, but had ended up playing a shortened 22-game season in Bradenton, Florida (as with all WNBA teams that year) because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[15] The WNBA's original schedule included a month-long break in July and August 2020 to allow players to participate in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo; however, they were postponed until the next year (2021) owing to the pandemic.

After several unsponsored months,[19][21] the university announced its approval of Seattle-based Alaska Airlines as the new sponsor of Hec Ed on January 20, 2011.