This vintage photo from the Plouffe Park Rink shows the ice labyrinth created by Doug Gabelmann in use a decade ago.
by Carol Sissons
If you lace up your skates and head down to the Plouffe Park outdoor rink at Preston and Somerset this winter, and if your family has lived in the neighbourhood a long time, you could be repeating what your great-grandmother did before you.
The tradition of an outdoor rink at Plouffe Park is so old that it was flourishing when the City of Ottawa was small enough to have full-time City staff to build and maintain the ice.
In those long ago days, there was a high board rink for hockey and an oval track around the entire exterior of the rink. When hockey games were in progress, young women would skate around the outside practicing fancy skating steps and eyeing potential beaus. Then, on Saturday nights, music would be brought in and couples and groups would skate around the oval to the music. Many a romance bloomed in the cold winter months at Plouffe Park.
The number of outdoor rinks continued to grow and the City began contracting out the work of building and maintaining rinks. During the 1990s, volunteers with the Dalhousie Community Association (DCA) spent many cold winter nights building and shovelling the rinks (the oval was replaced by a secondary rink without boards).
Neighbourhood Scouts and Guides got involved in order to earn money to travel to national jamborees. Scouting parents deepened friendships while passing on knowledge of how to wield the heavy hoses and create smooth and level ice. Young Cub Scouts proved keen to show off their prowess shovelling after snowfalls. Consequently, the Plouffe Park Rink won the Ice Excellence Award three years running.
A major highlight of each rink season was the Saturday when the park reverberated with the howls of wolves, the smells of hot chocolate and hot dogs, and shrieks of laughter as the chuck wagon races unfolded. Teams of Cubs from packs throughout the city competed on skates pulling specially designed “Klondike” sleighs.
The century turned. The Plant Pool Recreation Association (PPRA) took over the contract for the rinks. A new highlight was the “Plouffeplay” group, who played hockey every Sunday morning throughout the decade.
Since they were young professionals who originally coalesced around casual summer soccer, they enjoyed the game with all levels of players. At first, a goal was scored by simply hitting a boot. Then a specially designed box emerged but still no goalies.
The decade progressed. More “hockey babies” began to appear parked on the snowbanks, and a morning of socializing surrounded the game.
The Plouffeplay group helped in many ways, providing a new snow blower and always welcoming community youth into their games and their highly developed code of good sportsmanship.
For several years, the PPRA played Mothers and Daughters Hockey on Sunday evenings and broomball on Wednesday. One year the PPRA’s amazing ice maker, Doug Gabelmann, created a fantasy maze of islands and passages to skate around.
While the new Plant Recreation Centre was being built, the rink was relegated to a trailer at the far end of the park, creating problems of lengthy and freezing hoses. But it also provided the thrill of watching the new building getting underway at last.
By this time, there were over 200 outdoor rinks in the amalgamated city. When hard times hit the city in 2004, the City budget proposed cutting the outdoor rink program entirely. The PPRA went to battle to get the outdoor rink program put back into the budget and succeeded.
Now, Canada is turning 150. What does the future hold for this wonderful winter tradition?
With climate change, it is getting difficult to get a long season of consistently good ice. The contract with the City does not provide sufficient funding for a high-quality operation without a lot of additional volunteer hours.
Even though the rink has evolved in unexpected ways over the years, it has always done so because individuals and groups in the community have seen it as a place they wanted to use and shape for their own purposes.
If you are looking for a regular way to get out of the house each week, or if you are a student wanting volunteer hours, the rink could use your help weeknights or week- ends to keep a watchful eye on the change rooms. You will become part of an incredible group of volunteers such as Ida Henderson, who has helped over the past 25 years shovelling, monitoring the change room, and tying skates for countless children trying on their first skates borrowed from the large PPRA supply. Or, if you are part of a group who might like to skate at a regular time with family or friends and make the rink part of your community space, get in touch with the PPRA.
