BOSTON (AP) – The Boston Garden, a storied name that appeared consigned to the dustbin of sports history, was partially resurrected Thursday in a 20-year naming-rights deal assigning a new arena label in deference to modern marketing realities: TD Banknorth Garden.

But it’s an open question whether that mouthful will catch on with local fans of the dearly departed Boston Garden. “I won’t use it, and I don’t know that anybody will,” Jeanne Cyr, a 64-year-old Cambridge retiree and self-described “huge sports fan,” said as she gazed at a huge banner that was unfurled on the building reading, “Hello, my name is TD Banknorth Garden.”

Many locals never took a liking to FleetCenter, the name of the now decade-old building that replaced the Garden as home of the NBA’s Boston Celtics and the NHL’s Boston Bruins.

“I never did call it FleetCenter,” Cyr said. “It will always be, The Garden’ … but it should be spelled “G-A-H-D-E-N, as in Boston Gah-den,” she said in the local brogue that comes naturally to Cyr, a lifelong Boston area resident.

William J. Ryan, chairman, president and chief executive of Portland, Maine-based TD Banknorth Inc., acknowledged in an interview that some may drop the bank’s name when referring to the arena. But he said the deal is still a worthwhile investment for his bank as it tries to expand its footprint and name recognition in the Boston area and southern New England.

By returning “Garden” to the arena name, “We hope people will remember the company that allowed that to happen,” Ryan said in an interview after the deal was announced on the floor of FleetCenter.

Jim Ackor, a banking industry analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said, “Whatever Joe Lunchbox calls it, The Garden’ or TD Banknorth Garden,’ the name is going to be splashed over everything, and it’s going to be impossible to avoid. It’s really quite a coup for Banknorth.” Financial terms of the naming-rights deal reached with arena owner Delaware North Cos. were not disclosed, but published reports citing anonymous sources familiar with the deal said TD Banknorth would pay between $5 million and $6 million per year.

Separately, the bank also has committed to invest more than $5 million in New England neighborhoods.

through the arena’s foundation and the Boston Bruins Foundation, and another $8 million for improvements to the arena over the life of the deal, officials said. Delaware North also owns the NHL’s Bruins.

Dan Migala, publisher of the Chicago-based sports marketing trade publication The Migala Report, said the charitable and arena improvement commitments along with the 20-year life of the contract could make it the single-biggest naming-rights deal ever for an indoor U.S. sports arena.

A naming-rights deal for Atlanta’s Phillips Arena included annual naming-rights payments of $9 million, but included fewer add-ons than the Boston agreement, Migala said.

FleetCenter officials said they were pleased Banknorth chose to incorporate the Garden name.

“We couldn’t be happier to find a partner that embraces the tradition of Boston sports history the way Banknorth does,” arena president Richard Krezwick said.

The new name officially takes effect July 1.

Banknorth’s Ryan said his goal was “to bring the Garden feeling back to all of the people who remember it so well.”

The old Garden saw 16 Celtics NBA titles and five Bruins Stanley Cups.

The name TD Banknorth was created just last month, when shareholders in Banknorth Group Inc. approved the $4 billion deal that gave Canada’s Toronto Dominion Bank a controlling stake in the Maine-based bank.

The arena deal ends the whimsical auction of daily naming rights on eBay that resulted in the building being named – officially, if not in actual usage – such things as the KurtCenter, the JoeyColinAbbyCenter and the Nocturnal Nannies Arena for 24-hour periods over the past month.

One New York lawyer’s bid to name the arena for New York Yankees’ star Derek Jeter was derailed after his friend chipped in and they agreed to name it the “Jimmy Fund Center,” after the Boston-based cancer charity.

The auctioning raised more than $150,000 for charity over three weeks.

The last of those auctions, for March 13 rights, ended Thursday.

Signs reflecting the the new TD Banknorth name will go up beginning in July. Once the auctioned naming rights conclude March 13, most arena signs will continue to carry the FleetCenter name temporarily, arena spokesman Jim Delaney said.

Opened in 1995 as a replacement to the dear but decrepit Boston Garden, the arena was originally to be named the Shawmut Center, for a local bank. But Shawmut was acquired by Fleet Bank before the building opened, resulting in the name FleetCenter.

Fleet later merged with BankBoston to become FleetBoston, which was acquired by Bank of America last year.

Bank of America and Delaware North nearly completed a deal that would have put the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank’s name on the building above Boston’s North Station. The bank had test-marketed prospective arena names and measured for new signs, but a Bank of America spokesman said the deal collapsed when the company changed its marketing priorities and was unable to agree with Delaware North on financial terms.

Instead, Bank of America bought out the remaining six years of the 15-year, $30 million deal for a reported $3 million. That allowed the building to sell daily naming rights and seek a new long-term partner.

AP-ES-03-03-05 1807EST