GOOD OL’ DAYS OF ROGER CROZIER HOCKEY SCHOOL RECALLED TODAY AT SECOND LAST SKATE IN BRACEBRIDGE

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

BRACEBRIDGE — Dan Brooks and I were reminiscing this morning about being defence partners 55 years ago at the Roger Crozier-Ron Ingram summer hockey school here.

We were on the same ice with Mayor Rick Maloney for the final regular public skate two days before the Bracebridge Memorial Arena closes.

The ice comes out on Tuesday next week after Easter.

Two dozen of us were glad to glide around unimpeded by the several hundred more expected for two skates Saturday 10 a.m. to noon and 1-3 p.m.

Capacity for those skates is 175 at once per session — but expect more throughout the day.

Mayor Rick Maloney was among two dozen skaters this morning at the final weekly adult skate Thursday. He will be hosting two free final skates Saturday that will include hot chocolate and snacks upstairs. He’s even bringing his 91-year-old father-in-law Alf Goodfellow for a look, who was one of the first to walk the barrel ice surfacer when the rink opened in 1949.

Brooks, 68, said he remembers growing up at the old barn, where he went on to star with one of the best Bears teams in the mid-’70s — a Junior C club that won at least one Georgian Bay Champions.

I was on their Bracebridge juveniles farm team. Competition was tough in those years even for a big-D like me.

Dan Brooks, 68, and Kathy Sander, 75, caught up with each other on the ice where they both grew up a rink rats.

Still, I didn’t do too bad this morning, considering I’m still feeling the ill effects of a torn Achilles two years ago.

And I outlasted Brooks and Maloney, staying on the ice the full 75 minutes till 10:15 p.m., while they took an early leave. Probably to tend to town council or hospital foundation business.

Maloney, who is hosting Saturday’s two skates, said the Memorial Arena (named in memory of war veterans like the park downtown) will be coming down this fall. It was part of the contract with Aquicon the company that is building the new Muskoka Lumber Centre rink. The mayor said the town has assembled almost all of the block around the arena and the site could become downtown housing private or public.

He said a grand opening of the new arena is planned for August, which will follow a soft opening in just a few months early this summer.

And that unfortunately the blue and yellow bleacher seating has led paint so can’t be given away or sold. Also most of the advertising can’t be transferred to the new rink.

Fortunately the Bracebridge Sports Hall of Fame memorabilia will be moving the other side of town.

Around the corner at SMMH, foundation chair Brooks added that “at Ann Street we’re just focused on the hospital we have now until a new one is built.”

This reporter, meanwhile, remained on the ice on the job.

I got to chat with people I hadn’t seen in years, including Kathy Sander, whose late husband Dale was among many fine Sander boys who were great hockey players in town.

At 75, Kathy continues to skate here every week as she has even during COVID when allowed.

But it was very agile Carol White who was the oldest out today at a spry 88 years getting her leg up on the boards to stretch.

She was joined by admiring friends Linda Wood and Nancy Black who were also on several fine synchronized skating teams with her more than two decades ago and who are planning a reunion this summer at Annie Williams Park.

Carol White, 88, still has it. She says this is how you keep going, as friends Linda Wood and Nancy Black smile admirably. They were all synchronized skaters.
Carol White, 88, still has it. She says this is how you keep going, as friends Linda Wood and Nancy Black smile admirably. They were all synchronized skaters.

With one more day of hockey, I should have stuck around after for the last shinny game at 10:30 a.m. to relive my glory days — where I scored a big minor hockey goal for Gravenhurst against Bracebridge with my dad, Hugh, and sister, Chris, watching cheering me on I remember up behind the net in the stands.

Fun, fond memories that I look forward to sharing and learning of others this weekend.

See you there — even if you come out just to watch and reminisce about the glory days of hockey in Bracebridge.

A reminiscent look around the Bracebridge Memorial Arena.

Even this reporter got in a warm-up skate for Saturday.

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