[6] From 1960 to 1974 the Memorial Coliseum was the home of the Portland Buckaroos of the Western Hockey League, and it was the venue for the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament in March 1965, where UCLA won its second of ten such championships in the 1960s and 1970s.

When the Portland Trail Blazers franchise was awarded in 1970, the Memorial Coliseum became the team's home court, capable of seating 12,666 when configured for basketball.

As part of the team's 40th anniversary celebration, the Blazers played a pre-season game at Memorial Coliseum on October 14, 2009, against the Phoenix Suns.

Team founder Harry Glickman, former players Jerome Kersey, Terry Porter, and Bob Gross, as well as broadcaster Bill Schonely attended the game.

The organization played their first preseason game of the 2019–2020 season at the Memorial Coliseum on October 8, against the Denver Nuggets as a tribute to the stadium that the Trail Blazers called home for 25 years.

The building is currently the home arena of the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League, which used to split its schedule with the Moda Center prior to 2021.

The Memorial Coliseum also hosts the OSAA High School Dance and Drill team State Championships every year in March.

[12] The Memorial Coliseum was designed with large doors at both ends to accommodate the floats of the Portland Rose Festival's Grand Floral Parade.

[citation needed] President Barack Obama spoke at the Memorial Coliseum on March 21, 2008, before winning the Democratic Nomination.

[19] Original plans called for a building made of wood, which is plentiful in the region, but cost and safety factors precluded that.

The structure instead consists of a modernistic gray glass and aluminum, non-load-bearing curtain-wall cube around a central ovular concrete seating bowl.

There are no dates given, only the names and an inscription: "To the memory of a supreme sacrifice we honor those who gave their lives for God, principle and love of country".

[20] The seating capacity for basketball has been as follows:[21][22] In 2018, Avantika Bawa had a solo exhibition of drawings and prints of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the Portland Art Museum, as part of the APEX series curated by Grace Kook-Anderson.

Opposition to razing Memorial Coliseum included some veterans and architectural historians who successfully applied for National Register of Historic Places status for the building.