Things change as the years pass - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

A bit of my history surfaced the other night when I watched the local news on television. The story involved a historical monument in Listowel erected to remember those killed when the Listowel arena collapsed way back in 1959.

 

It was Feb. 28, 1959 when more than two dozen hockey players were practising on the Listowel arena ice surface at 9:27 a.m. when the  heavy snow load on the arena roof caused it to collapse. Many young players were trapped under the wreckage. Seven teammates and Listowel’s arena director did not survive. Their names will be honoured on the new memorial.

 

I remember the shock at the time, because I was about the same age as the young victims.  People of our age sensed nothing but glorious futures ahead of us, not tragic deaths.

 

The provincial government investigated the deaths, but I don’t recall any findings. Years later, in 1976, all communities were required to hire engineers to inspect their arenas and nearly all were found vulnerable to collapsing, given the right snow cover - and we had much heavier snow covers in those days.

 

I remember the Blyth Festival, then barely a new undertaking, having to make Memorial Hall available for a town meeting to decide what to do about the arena. A big deciding point was that the province had just begun the Wintario lottery. It would provide money to help pay part of the cost of rebuilding the arena.

 

The people of Blyth decided that the most important thing was to get the arena back in use. Volunteers swung into action and, in a few days, took down the old arena. Meanwhile, architects were hired to design a new building, using the existing artificial ice equipment that was only a decade old. Construction began and, by the end of January, the arena was back in use, complete with the upstairs banquet and meeting hall, which the community wanted so badly. What’s more, enough money had been collected that the building was paid for, except that Wintario was still trying to raise its promised share. Later in 1977, the new building was central in Blyth’s celebration of the community’s centennial.

 

Meanwhile, old arenas were being condemned and new buildings raised. We owned the newspaper in Teeswater then and the arena was a significant part of the annual Teeswater Fall Fair and had to be replaced. Brussels had a bigger project in mind, determined to bring the Fall Fair together with the arena at a new location at the southern end of the village. Much more money was needed than in Blyth and community volunteers went to work catering to dinners for years to come. I remember a special tent set up to serve meals when the International Plowing Match was held near Wingham.

 

I was interested to see in a recent paper that the Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Centre was reopened recently after significant renovations, nearly 50 years after it was originally built. Blyth and District Community Center was re-designed and re-constructed several years ago to give the arena the larger ice surface the community had skipped over in the rush to rebuild the arena in 1976/1977.

 

One of the big bonuses of that community centre in Blyth was the upstairs banquet hall and dance floor that is now a source of controversy. It was so badly needed 50 years ago that some people didn’t want village council to repair the roof of Memorial Hall downtown, but have the building torn down and replaced with a larger dance hall. 

 

Today, with the community no longer in control of its own future due to municipal amalgamation, and the building not being used as much for dances, North Huron staff has proposed moving the Blyth branch of the Huron County Library to the arena auditorium from rented quarters on main street. Residents are fighting back.

 

So much has changed in so many ways since the  horrid days of the Listowel arena collapse. Memorial Hall isn’t the community centre it was in 1975, but it is the very reason many people come to Blyth, attracting thousands of visitors to a much enlarged and improved building that now also offers an art gallery.

 

At the same time, the baby boom is over and arenas are having a tough time supporting their activities. Blyth and Brussels share hockey teams and games. Meanwhile, many dances are held at private venues like the Brussels Four Winds Barn, as one example.

 

One thing you know if you’re an old guy like me is that things that seem permanent do change eventually. Those little guys who died in Listowel would be old men now and what changes they’d have seen; things they couldn’t have imagined.

 

We can plan for the future, as the arena builders and the Blyth Festival builders did, but we don’t know what that future will bring. Things we take for granted will change. Don’t lock us in a corner.