The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Memories of ice rink and flying Rockets
Skaters had enjoyed their last go-round and the DundeeAngus ice rink became rubble after the bulldozers revved up in June 1992.
Thousands of people took to the ice during the lifetime of the Dundee rink which saw appearances from some of the biggest names in skating.
The £45,000 DundeeAngus Ice Rink was built in seven months on the new Kingsway West in 1938 with capacity for 2,000 skaters at one time.
The 4,000-capacity venue opened on Friday September 30 which was the same day Neville Chamberlain flew home from Munich after signing a peace pact with Hitler.
The Earl of Airlie performed the opening ceremony at the rink and expressed his relief that another war with Germany had seemingly been averted during his speech.
Lord Airlie said the achievement in front of them was one of those constructive ideas which must have brought to Dundee a measure of relief, and, practically all of the contracts, with the exception of the refrigerator plant, had been placed in the city.
The celebrations included a figure skating exhibition by 17-year-old Cecilia Colledge who completed the sweep of British, European and world titles in 1937.
Colledge competed for Britain at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics in New York in 1932 aged 11 years and 73 days old and remains Britain’s youngestever Olympic competitor.
She captivated the audience and willingly responded to repeated encores.
A big attraction at the opening ceremony was the first-ever game of ice hockey between two newlyformed teams that would become bitter rivals in the years to come.
Dundee Tigers defeated Fife Flyers 5-2 before returning the compliment the following night with a return match to mark the opening of the Kirkcaldy rink.
Both featured in a Scottish league with opposition coming from Falkirk Lions, Perth Panthers and Glasgow Mohawks to name but a few, with crowds of 4,000 the norm.
Public skate sessions were taking place four days a week which made it one of the most popular places to socialise with hundreds of romances starting on the ice.
The rink was earmarked as a potential venue to host boxing by George Grant who organised Wednesday evening fights at Premierland stadium in William Street.
Dundee was a hotbed of fighting in these days and Freddie Tennant lost his Scottish flyweight title to Jackie Paterson at the rink in May 1939.
In April 1952 people came in their droves for the farewell performance of Jeannette Altwegg which marked another memorable moment in the rink’s history.
Altwegg was the last British woman to win an Olympic individual ice skating gold medal at the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo at the age of 21.
Dundee Tigers disbanded in 1955 after the Scottish League joined with the English League to create a British League which proved to be disastrous.
The Dundee Rockets eventually took on the Tigers’ colours and finally got a home rink at Kingsway where they played their first game against Murrayfield in 1969.
The Rockets won the Intermediate League in 1968-69, the Northern League in 1972-73 and the Spring Cup in 1973-74, plus a host of local competitions.
Tom Stewart’s team became a dynasty in the 1980s with the crowd bursting at the seams when BBC Grandstand and ITV’s World of Sport covered the games.
The Rockets became the biggest crowd-pullers in British ice hockey history and won the Grand Slam three years in a row between 1981 and 1984.
A second Dundee Tigers team was founded in 1987 following the demise of the Rockets.
They were renamed the Tayside Tigers in 1988 before being dropped from the top flight in 1989 following the closure of the Dundee rink.
The complex faced demolition after being sold for £2m to make way for a William Low supermarket despite an annex for curling being added in 1984.
The main stadium was pulled down in 1990 but the annex, known as the “back rink”, continued to be used until 1992.
Public skating and professional ice hockey finally returned to the city following the opening of Dundee Ice Arena at Camperdown Leisure Park in 2000.
The £6.6m cost was slightly higher than the £45,000 outlay for the Dundee-Angus rink which is now the Tesco superstore in the Kingsway West retail park.