The Rinkmen
The History of Outdoor Rinks in the Porcupine
By Gregory Reynolds HighGrader Magazine March/April 2001
They skated into the National Hockey League to the roar of the crowds and the applause of their teammates but they came off the outdoor rinks of Timmins with the smell of wood on their clothes, stinky socks in their nostrils, cold feet and frost-bitten cheeks. They were Frank Mahovlich, Peter Babando, Allan Stanley, Bob McCord, Bill Barilko, Bep Guidolin, Walt Tkaczuk and several dozen others who made the name of Timmins famous as the hockey factory that produced more professional players than any other community in the world.
In the 1940s through to the 1970s, the centre of any child's existence in winter was the neighbourhood outdoor hockey rink.
These rinks were more than just a place to play the game; they served as a rite of passage.
You started by going to the rink with your father or older brother; staggering about on double-bladed skates and lasting only as long as your guardian's patience. Then there was the day you were allowed to go to the rink by yourself, to enter into the rinkman's shack to put on your skates. Bill Boychuk remembers the 1940s when there were 14 outdoor rinks in the Town of Timmins, one at each of the public and separate schools, one at Gillies Lake and another at the Timmins Armories.
"The first group of boys to reach a rink had to help the rinkman clean it off," recalls Boychuk, "He was supposed to do it but somehow it didn't work that way too often. Those rinkmen were the stuff of legends, some were winos who had a bottle in their overcoat pocket or hidden in the woodpile. Other rinkmen were miners hurt on the job and let go with no hope of further full time employment, and some were welfare cases. Since there were no pensions in those days, former miners were anxious to get six-seven months of work."
The shack was about 16 feet square, comprised of four walls that hooked together and a flat roof. The municipality's public works department stored them through the summer and when the cold weather came, they were trucked to the various sites and erected in a couple of hours.
The rinks' boards were put in place and as soon as some snow fell and the temperature fell below freezing, the ground was flooded several times. They used a hose hooked to a hydrant and the rinkman had a special wrench to open it.

In 1947, the Town of Timmins (pop. 26,000) hired its first full time recreation director and the number of rinks kept growing. The same year, the Timmins Arena at the corner of Second Avenue and Balsam Street burned down, adding to the need for outdoor rinks.

Religious Wars
Hockey was a big part of the elementary school system. Each school had its own rink. Roman Catholics played in the separate school league, while the Protestants played in a public school system. Both leagues came together for a playoff tournament at the McIntyre Arena where the top teams from both systems competed. When the playoffs occurred there was always lots of fighting in the stands, sparked equally by religious beliefs and the need to attract the eyes of young girls. Each year it got worse so eventually the school boards decided the racial and religious disharmony wasn't worth the benefits of having a school champion.
In those days, a child went to one school his entire elementary career and loyalty to that school was very strong. Each nationality had its own school, Moneta for the Italians; Holy Family for the Irish (the majority), Ukrainians and Polish; Jacques Cartier and St. Charles for the French; Birch Street and Central for the English Protestants. A boy from one school didn't go to another school's rink unless he was accompanied by a half dozen friends.
School hockey games were on Friday afternoons and the senior students were allowed out of class at 3 p.m. to watch the game, cheer wildly and wrestle on the snow piles with visitors from the other school. On weekends, there was a schedule posted in each shack that set the times for open skating, girls only and pickup hockey.
When the rink was covered by snow, the male teacher who taught the hockey team would walk into the grade seven and eight classrooms, pick out the biggest and strongest boys, and take them to the stand of scrapers. The snow that was tossed over the boards, provided stands for the girls to watch the team practice or play pick-up games.
By the time the rinkman came on duty at 3 p.m. and fired up the box stove, the rink would be cleared and the hockey team ready to change their rubber boots for skates.
The team was allowed to practice until 5.30 p.m. when open skating would be held for an hour.
The boys would often stay on the ice when their time was up, forcing the girls to appeal to the rinkman and, depending on how much the boys had helped him with his duties that week, he would go outside and maybe order the boys off the rink. The town set the official rules but all the children knew that the rinkman was god and only his rules mattered. The worst punishment was to be banned from the rink for a day, a week or a month and since the children tended to hang out at the rink nearest their home, the rinkman knew most of the children and his word was law.
The one hour of open skating was followed by more hockey as the boys came back on for pickup games.
At 8.45 p.m., the bell on the fire hall was rung and every child that wasn't in the company of an adult had to be off the street by nine. The curfew was enforced by the police and getting picked up after nine led to a lecture from the officer and a half dozen on the backside from your father when you got home.
Boychuk says nearly every boy played hockey and those who were good would join teams. But the real skills of skating and stick-handling developed in the endless pickup games.
"With only six teams in the NHL, a player had to be really good to make the grade and parents pushed their boys to be on the rink every possible moment," he says.
The early equipment was simple. Goalies used Eaton's catalogues for pads and a scarf for a mask. At pickup games, there was usually only one puck and if it went over the boards into the snow, all the players joined in the search. It wasn't until the 1950s that the first artificial lights were set up at some of the rinks. The lights were 25 cycle and flickered a lot.
Fathers saw hockey as the way out of the mines and lumber camps for their boys and encouraged them to spend time at the rinks. Those girls lucky enough to take figure skating at the McIntyre in Schumacher would practice their edges, figures and spins or teach a few movements to their less fortunate friends on the outdoor rinks.

Father Figures
The rinkmen, many of whom worked for years at the same rink, were actually father figures. They helped smaller children with the laces, settled disputes, made certain there was no bullying and comforted those who were frost nipped or too cold to function. Most boys in those days, says Boychuk, had two pair of rubber boots, one to wear in summer with one pair of socks and a larger pair for the winter when he wore two pairs of heavy woolen socks.
Boys wore thick wool pants with buttons in the front. When the trousers got wet they smelled. Everyone had heavy mittens and the boys had toques and long scarves that could be turned into face masks.
The shacks stank to high heaven from the burning of wet wood and the smell of rubber boots.
The rinkman always needed wood so the smart boys would volunteer to create a pile on the inside, thus earning a deaf ear when the girls complained about being kept off the ice or being thrown out of the shack so the boys could smoke without the spying eyes of kid sisters and cousins.
The stoves always seemed to have their pipes blocked and smoke often filled the shack. Then the door would be opened and cold air allowed into the room. This would give rise to howls from the girls and smaller boys who had to sit near the door because there was a pecking order in the room.
The rinkman had a rocking chair or a padded chair that was reserved only for him. The older and biggest boys sat near him close to the stove. Then there was a rank of medium-sized boys and finally those on the benches, furthest from the stove, changing into boots or skates or trying to get warm after an hour on the ice. There had to be a clear aisle to the door in case of a fire but there was constant movement within the shack as children jockeyed for position.
The noise level was also deafening what with smaller children crying from the cold, arguments over the merits of the Montreal Canadiens against the Toronto Maple Leafs, pleas for cigarettes and coughing from the smoke in the room.
There was no washroom and while the boys could nip around the backside of the shack, the girls had to risk an accident or head for home. At many rinks, there was an empty oil drum at rinkside that could be filled with newspapers and wood for a fire to warm hands and faces.
When the City of Timmins was created in 1973, retired Recreation Director Fred Salvador recalls he had 42 outdoor rinks. There were leagues that played their entire schedules on outdoor rinks, moving indoors only for playoffs or even just for a championship series.

Yet, the era of the outdoor rink was coming to a close and in few short years would be over.
"In 1967, the Town of Timmins opened Centennial Arena and then an arena was built in Mountjoy and a few years later one in Whitney and then another in Timmins."
The city had six arenas, one in Mountjoy, two in the former Town of Timmins, and one each in Schumacher, South Porcupine and Porcupine, to serve 47,000 residents.
Salvador recalls how in the 1960s and 1970s there was federal money under various make-work programs to build arenas and also to hire staff for outdoor rinks.
"The school boards got spoiled and the city got spoiled," says Salvador, who was also a school trustee in those days.
When the money was cut off, the city wanted the school boards to pay for the staff and snow clearing. The school boards took the attitude that "if the city won't take the responsibility, why should we" and one by one the school rinks disappeared.
Also, in 1968 super school boards were created and busing of children out of their neighbourhoods became common. Salvador recalls all the grade seven and eight students were grouped into one or two schools and there were no senior students in the remaining schools to clear the rinks.
The buses then took the children home right after classes ended as most students lived a long distance from their schools. This meant that the school rink was no longer the centre of a child's existence.
Weather and television also played a role in the decline of the outdoor rinks. Television arrived in Timmins in 1956 and while it took a few years, it changed everything.
Boychuk also remembers that in the 1940s and 50s, winters were colder and lasted longer. The rinks were busy in November and the ice was good until late April, even into May.
Salvador says that by the 1970s the city found the rinks were often only used in February and the ice was gone by April, making outdoor rinks both impractical and expensive. "We just didn't get snow and cold temperatures until January or later."
And another thing that changed was the way people played hockey. By the 1970s, minor hockey had become highly organized with long schedules and parents (and coaches) wanted children to play indoors.
The equipment got better and more expensive and the number of players and teams were limited to the ice time that could be purchased at an arena.
This meant that the average boy never got to play organized hockey and thus the demand for outdoor rinks lessened annually.
School boards were also diversifying their physical activities from rinks to gymnasiums. Young children were now playing a variety of programs.
As well, expectations had changed. With the opportunity to go to college and university available, hockey was no longer seen as the only way to escape the mines and bush camps.
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