YOUR MEMORIES! FUN FOR ALL ON THE ICE AT OLD CITY RINK

From hockey to curling... venue was a top spot

SNOW and ice are still on our minds at Times Past HQ this week, as Glasgow braces itself for another bout of wintry weather. Lovely reader Anne Melrose, prompted by news coverage of skaters and curlers taking to frozen ponds around the city, recalls a clipping from an Evening Times report in the 70s.

“It’s about ice hockey club the Glasgow Dynamos, having a practice on a frozen Queen’s Park Pond,” she says.

In fact the article captures some of the players practising around some unsuspecting swans as big name in the game John Hester passed on some tips.

He was in Glasgow to help the team improve their game, ahead of his own appearance at the ice hockey world championships the following month.

“Incidentally,” added the report, “ice hockey is not exactly a cheap game to take up, in these inflationary days – with a pair of ice skates costing between £50 and £100…”

The Glasgow Dynamos were one of the city’s best ice hockey teams, and their dedication was second to none.

Based at Crossmyloof Ice Rink – once the be all and end all for skating and curling in the city – the team was competing with other clubs – the Mohawks and the Redwings, and, says the article, “around 200 Peewees aged between eight and 10 years of age”, not to mention the curlers and the skaters.

They even had to train at midnight as that was the only ice-time available. No wonder they jumped at the chance of a game on the frozen pond.

Training at Crossmyloof was also fraught with danger.

On the Old Time Hockey UK podcast, former player Kenny McKie once recalled: “Early morning games had to be played around the Zamboni – the ice surfacing machine – at the top corner of the rink, because there was no garage outside to park it in.

“I’ll save the blushes of the player who on more than one occasion skated towards it at full tilt with his head down. Well, you can imagine the rest.

“One Christmas we had to play around a huge Christmas tree at centre ice. A real Christmas tree, pine needles and all. The hoist that was supposed to raise the tree wasn’t working, and the only way we could get a game, was to play around it.”

Crossmyloof opened on October 1, 1907 and Times Past readers have many fond memories of it.

It was Scotland’s first skating rink, boasting two huge ice pads with a bandstand in the middle and it was a popular courting spot for generations of Glaswegians.

The rink, rebuilt in the 1920s, was also used for ice dances and ice discos during the 1950s and 1960s.

As skating began to wane in popularity in the 1970s the rink fell silent and was eventually demolished after a fire in 1989 to make way for a supermarket.

Do you remember the Glasgow Dynamos? Did you play for one of the city’s ice hockey teams? Get in touch with Times Past to share your photos and stories. Email ann.fotheringham@ glasgowtimes.co.uk or write to Ann Fotheringham, Glasgow Times, 125 Fullarton Drive, Glasgow East Investment Park, Glasgow G32 8FG