The Parting of the Ways

(04.08.07) Is it a sign of advancing age to look wistfully back at buildings and places, and yearn for their existence once they are no more? I'm only 32, and I come from Camrose, Alberta, but already, large chunks of my past in that esteemed city have been long since paved over with shiny senior citizen condominiums and pseudo-rustic gazebos; actual history replaced with manufactured nostalgia. The very hospital I was born in 1975 was replaced with a new healing centre years later. My first kindergarten school? Gone, replaced by a condo. The home in which I spent my first five years of life? Gone, replaced by a patch of grass.On top of all those buildings, one more relic of my dwindling memories of growing up in Camrose is soon to join them. The Wild Rose Arena, Camrose's first indoor arena, has seen its last game, housed its last boyhood dream, and is scheduled for demolition later this year. Built in 1926, the rink was Camrose's only rink until the ultra-modern CADRECA was built for the country's centennial in 1967. (No one remembers what the name CADRECA actually stands for, but the point became academic when the rink was renamed the Max MacLean Arena in the 1990's). As the population of Camrose and the surrounding area has grown over the decades, the city's two rinks have become increasingly taxed with increasing demand for ice slots. The fact that the Camrose Kodiaks, one of the country's top Junior 'A' hockey franchises, has outgrown its humble rink (the Max MacLean Arena), was also pressing on the city's mind as the 20th century drew to a close.

So, this fall sees the unveiling of a brand new complex, the Camrose Regional Sport Development Centre (catchy name, innit?). The facility will house a 300-seat "utility" rink, but the centerpiece will be the 3,000-seat main arena that will house the Kodiaks and push both the AJHL games and the international Viking Cup tournament to a whole new level. I don't want to sound like I'm a stodgy old coot, resistant to change like so many ex-Reform Party voters (the majority of Camrose's election base). I'm overjoyed about the new rink, and it will undoubtedly lead to Camrose hosting major tournaments such as the Centennial Cup (aka Major Canadian Bank Cup).

However, the old Wild Rose Arena has been elbowed out, nudged to the sidelines like many a wallflower at a barnyard dance. They held a final free public skate on April 1, and I specifically made the trip back home to soak up the final days of the grand old rink. I hadn't been there since I stopped playing there in 1990. Back then, amazingly, there was no glass along the sides of the rink (fans and parents of the players were an attentive lot in those days), but plexiglass and safety netting now spanned the whole ice surface. In one end of the rink, there was a small food stand tucked into an alcove that always had smoke billowing out of it, as the ventilation was quite poor. The rafters and support beams were a thing of beauty in the intricate lattice work. Behind the net on one side of the rink, not far from the smoking hot dog stand, was a small section of seats that were actually about 10 feet above the ice. The stands were condemned long ago, but my Dad remembers watching a senior hockey team called the Camrose Maroons there in the 1960s. Underneath the stands was a dank, dark walkway that led to the other side of the rink. Towards the opposite corner of the rink, the floor dipped alarmingly towards the wall, leading one to believe that the whole arena was gradually sinking into a vast sinkhole.

But it never sank. It stood the test of time for over 80 years, and was home to many a hockey memory to me and many others. One of my last ports of call during the farewell tour was to have a quick peak in the dressing rooms, the same rooms where my Dad would tie my skates while I adjusted my shoulder pads and slipped on my #6 IGA Mall'Ers jersey. I was amazed to see how big the room actually was (I've obviously spent too much time in the K of C dressing rooms). I stood in the room for a few seconds before noticing a small child, not twelve years old, sitting on the bench by the door with his skates on. I risked humiliation (you know how kids are these days) and said to him, "I used to play in this rink when I was your age. I've got a lot of memories of this place."

The kid looked up at me, almost matching my own nostalgic expression, and replied, "Yeah. Me, too." Twenty years difference in our ages, almost forty years between mine and my Dad's, and we all had memories of this beautiful rink at different times of its existence. I shall miss that rink as I would miss an old friend.

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Another old rink will become no more in the near future. Historic old Westmount Centre Ice, as most have probably heard, will be drastically revamped, replacing most of its middle section with that most dreaded a sign of urban sprawl, a Home Depot. Presumably, the area currently containing the ice rink will be home to the window and door department. The rink only stood some five years, and has little history behind it, but the earliest video footage of a Bee Sharps game originates from that rink. This was back when the proprietor of the local watering hole used to videotape the games played next door at the rink, then show them on the bar's big screen TVs afterwards for the players' collective amusement and embarrassment.

Over the past couple of years, however, the videotaping stopped, along with the flow of hot water in the showers and beer in the dressing room (the latter due to a mall policy). I'm not sure the same amount of tears will be shed over Westmount as it would over the Wild Rose, but it nonetheless bears mention.