Victoria Rink rose from the ashes on Baker street
The original rink lasted 22 years before a short circuit set it ablaze
At 3:30 a.m., Aug. 26, 1914, a short circuit in the wiring of the Victoria Rink caused sparks that set the wooden structure ablaze. Flames shot far into the night air. Knox and Chalmers churches, just across little Church Lane, were in grave danger, their rear windowsills catching fire. The Guelph Creamery Company building across Baker Street was in peril too. However, determined efforts by firefighters prevented its spread, though the blaze completely destroyed the rink.
In my previous column, I described how the first Victoria Rink was built on the south end of the vacant Baker Street lot in 1892. It played host not only to Guelph’s curling clubs but also saw many hockey games, skating parties, stock shows, political rallies, and more. Only 22 years later, it was gone.
However, the Curling and Skating Company kept its cool and put up a new, up-to-date ice palace on the site of the old one. Curling and related activities quickly resumed. In addition, the Guelph Lawn Bowling Club resurrected its burnt greens, situated in behind the rink.
One of the biggest victories in Guelph curling history took place soon after, in February 1918, in Victoria Rink — in Toronto! There, the Royal City Curling Club team won the provincial championship contested at the big building in the Big Smoke. The Ontario Tankard was brought to the Victoria Rink in Guelph and displayed in a speciallymade oak cabinet in the club’s office. Despite its rarity, Stewart Brown comments in his 1988 history, “Guelph Curling Club: 150 years,” that the victory banner of 1918 was hung “in the smoke and dirt of the club rooms for 70 years — most clubs enclose their banners in glass cases.”
As might be expected, the Great Depression was challenging for both the Victoria Rink and the Royal City and union clubs that called it home and supported it. By the 193536 season, the two clubs had fewer than 30 members between them and shared the cost of renting a modest space of ice from the rink.
However, fortune smiled on the rink in 1936 when the Curling and Skating Company that owned Victoria Rink surrendered the lease to the city, which, in turn, sold the property to alderman (councillor) David Kennedy and his wife, who inaugurated the Victoria Rink Company to manage it. Kennedy was from an old Guelph clan, his father John having been mayor in 1901 and 1902. An avid curler, Kennedy decided to update the facility with the installation of a refrigeration system, thus allowing for artificial ice and a much-extended season. (Kennedy then became mayor of Guelph in 1937.)
On Oct. 17, 1936, this great leap forward was celebrated with three Toronto women skating champions, who put on an exhibition of “fancy skating ” that greatly pleased the hundreds of spectators. Then, the Guelph Musical Band struck up a tune and the skating townsfolk flooded onto the ice. The Mercury noted this unprecedented early start to the season allowed Guelphites to be skating indoors while, only a few feet away, members of the lawn bowling club were hard at it on the grass outside.
In 1938, the newly amalgamated Guelph Curling Club celebrated the 100th anniversary of organized curling in Guelph with a big bonspiel, in which the Sleeman Trophy was won by the Campbell rink from the Hamilton Thistle Club, winners of the Brier in the previous year.
The curling club purchased the rink in 1947 and made good use of it for two more decades. However, renewed popularity of the sport meant the club outgrew the Victoria Rink, which had also begun to show its age. Plus, in the age of the automobile, the central location of the rink was no longer so convenient or advantageous.
In 1968, the Guelph Curling Club sold the rink property to the city and moved to a new facility on Woolwich Street at the north end of town. The old rink was demolished and gave way to a parking lot.