Schenck High’s student section gets into the game Thursday in Bangor. Photo by Emily Bontatibus

Aidan Kinney, a freshman at Central Aroostook High, took a break from playing flute with her school’s small but lively eight-piece pep band to gush about her surroundings in Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center.

“It’s fun to be around everyone from the community and the other schools,” Kinney said. “There’s so much happening here. It’s a big difference from Mars Hill.”

Call this a Cross examination.

Maine has two arenas that bear the Cross Insurance name. In Bangor, there’s Cross Insurance Center, with Paul Bunyan standing guard outside and painted on center court. It’s always been Cross Insurance Center since it opened a dozen years ago. In Portland, there’s Cross Insurance Arena, known for decades as the Cumberland County Civic Center. Built in 1977, the building is showing its age, even after a facelift in 2012. It’s no palace, but it’s a serviceable little arena.

Both arenas are used each year for the Maine Principals’ Association basketball tournament, so I hatched a plan. On Thursday morning, visit Cross Insurance Center for the Class D North boys semifinals. Then make the drive south to Portland for the Class AA South semifinals Thursday evening. What are the similarities in terms of atmosphere?

It turns out, they are not similar at all. Cross Insurance Center has it all over its bigger cousin in Portland. At least it did in this one abjectly unscientific study on Thursday of tournament week, when semifinal games were held at each venue. Bangor’s strengths magnify Portland’s weaknesses.

The four schools participating in the Class D North semifinals — Katahdin, Central Aroostook, Schenck and Bangor Christian — have a combined enrollment of 399, just under half the enrollment of the smallest school participating in the Class AA South semis, Scarborough (enrollment 913 according to the MPA basketball bulletin). Still, what the four schools lacked in size, they made up for in volume. Fans from all four schools made sure to crowd into the seats near midcourt on both sides of Cross Insurance Center, maximizing their capacity for noise. The place was nowhere close to full, but it felt it.

“We’ve had a good team since I’ve been in high school. We play in front of good crowds and we play with energy, so it’s not anything crazy. It is special to be down here. The environment’s nice,” said Katahdin senior Josh Martin minutes after helping the Cougars overcome a 12-point third-quarter deficit to beat Central Aroostook, 64-54. When Katahdin made its fourth-quarter run, you could practically see momentum jog across Cross Insurance Center from one side to the other.

Aidan Kinney, middle, plays the flute with the Central Aroostook band on Thursday during the D North boys semifinals. Photo by Emily Bontatibus

On the other hand, Cross Insurance Arena has no sense of intimacy. Even if there’s a good crowd for a basketball game, and there were good crowds for Thursday night’s games — Scarborough vs. South Portland and Bonny Eagle vs. Thornton Academy — it feels empty. The problem is, the building wasn’t built for basketball, and no effort is made to make it basketball friendly. Cross Insurance Arena is first and foremost a hockey venue, and a good one. The Maine Mariners generally draw well and there’s a buzz in the building when they play. When the University of Maine has hosted men’s hockey games at Cross Insurance Arena in recent years, they sold out and the building got loud.

Thursday evening’s first game, a 63-45 win by South Portland over Scarborough, wasn’t close, so maybe that tamped the enthusiasm.

And where are the bands? Scarborough, South Portland, Bonny Eagle and Thornton Academy are among the largest high schools in the state. They have music programs. Where are they? This is a nit I will pick as long as music at Cross Insurance Arena comes from a Bon Jovi/Black Sabbath mix tape.

There has to be a way to make Cross Insurance Arena a decent basketball venue when Cooper Flagg is not on the court.

When the University of Maine women played Indiana at Cross Insurance Arena a few seasons ago, an effort was made to make it basketball-friendly. There were floor seats, and the court didn’t feel like a postage stamp far from fans. How about portable bleachers on each baseline for students? School A on one baseline, School B on the other, and the students scream and yell and go bonkers, as they should.

The Schneck High’s school band performs Thursday at the Class D North semifinals. Photo by Emily Bontatibus

Maybe in southern Maine, our proximity to Cross Insurance Arena is a detriment. Aside from Bangor, which is a Class AA island 130 miles from Portland, none of the schools that play their regional tournament at Cross Insurance Arena are more than an hour away. Do we take it for granted? Thursday, the longest trip belonged to Bonny Eagle, 22 miles each way. The four schools had a combined round trip of 100 miles.

Conversely, the four Class D boys teams that played at Cross Insurance Center on Thursday morning traveled a combined 612 miles round trip to compete. That included Bangor Christian, which drove a mere 6 miles from its campus across town to take on Schenck.

Kinney, who also plays on Central Aroostook’s girls basketball team and will suit up for the Panthers in Saturday’s regional championship game against Schenck, said she and her bandmates planned to make the trip from Mars Hill to Bangor four times this week. That’s close to 300 miles round trip each time.

Maybe that makes tournament games at the Cross Insurance Center an EVENT, while at Cross Arena, they’re an event.