The Wild Rose Arena
Monday, April 02, 2007

Posted by Berger_4_

The 2nd oldest arena in Canada was skated on for the last time today. The Wild Rose Arena in Camrose AB is now scheduled to be demolished after completion of the new EnCana Arena. It was such a terrible bitch....cold as fuck in the stands, to hot on the ice half the time, the other half it was too damn cold. The rooms were way to small...tiny actually. The benches hardly sat a full roster, and you had to guess the score and time 'cause so many lights were burnt out in the scoreboard. The showers didn't have enough hot water to get through a whole team for Chrissakes....the last 6 guys showered in ice or nothing at all...(which was especially a pain in the ass for me, since I'm one of the last ones undressed) But I loved the damn thing. It had great ice...some of the best in the country...I've lived in that thing for 5 years...playing peewee, bantam and my first two years of midget. I've reffed in there, and watched my little brother play too. A lot of time has been spent in that rink.

Hell, that goddamn thing even is allegedly haunted. The rink guys say that the players doors and penalty doors swing on their own. There's an old couple that sit in the stands at night watching games played half a century ago. A small kid runs around yelling for hours on end. And there is one man who stands in the northeast corner, a solitary figure watching games from a bygone era, where helmets weren't mandatory, they were frowned upon. When goalies couldn't go down, where sticks were made out of a log. Whether these are true or not is up to you to decide. (if you want to know more, watch CTV Edmonton Monday at 6, they're doing a little bit on it)

It's a damn shame that they're closing it, but at least it went out with a bang. The closing ceremonies were great. There was a public skate for everyone for 4 hours, then an oldtimers game between the Augustana/CLC Vikings and the Camrose Maroons. The oldest skater, Stu Bailey, who is the same age as the arena, had the last pair of steel blades to touch the ice, stepping off of the ice to a standing ovation from a full house.

It's nothing like todays arena's, all glass and cement. This girl had dressing rooms upstairs. Well, stairs isn't a fair term. More like a ladder. You used to crawl up the stairs past all the fans in the balcony to get to the room. For a while, the end boards were at a near 90 degree angle with the sideboards. The PA system consisted of a single bell, placed up in the aluminum foil covered roof, amid the wooden semicircle girders (at least until the installed 4 speakers and a buzzer. In order for the speakers to be used, it had to be either a provincial game or a tournament going on). Advertising was unheard of. Even now, there were no logos convincing you to buy a truck at Camrose Chrysler, or head to McDonalds after the game. The only sign was one that was put up in the rafters by the contractor, so many years ago when it was built. There aren't any seats, there's 3 benches, with heaters that work only part of the time.

There was a lot of history in that old barn. Brawls were fought, goals scored. Heroes made and hearts broken. Championships won and lost. It may be gone physically (or soon anyways) but it will live on in our hearts forever.

Berger