Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 29/02) - There are few things that can be called facilities that generate as many memorable moments as a hockey arena.

During its half century, youngsters have skated on the silver surface, grown to men and women, graduated to coaching and officiating and then seen the sporting experiences of their youth repeated by their children.

The arena has been the site of not only sports, but events of all kinds, including mine rescue competitions and one memorable visit by the renown folk singer Stompin' Tom Connors.

And barrel-jumping contests.

"The hockey players of that day (the 1960s) would dress up in clown outfits," recalled David Walcer. "They had these cardboard barrels with metal rings that they would line up side-by-side.

"The clowns would see who could jump the most barrels, and the place was just packed to the rafters."

The arena was also the venue for ice competitions at the first Arctic Winter Games, held in 1970.

Golden Years

Before the discovery of diamonds, the arrival of government and the distraction of television, when Yellowknife was a small remote mining town, hockey was a winter-time religion and Gerry Murphy Arena its first church.

Scheduled to be torn down next spring, the arena has been the site of countless competitions, but the competition was never more heated than it was in the arena's early years.

When it was completed in 1949, Gerry Murphy Arena was the only indoor arena in the North. It became the new home of the Yellowknife District Hockey Association.

The association's senior men's league was composed of teams representing area mines, and a town team supported by local businesses. Seasons prior to 1949 were played out on the ice of Back Bay.

So the establishment of an indoor arena added a new aura of seriousness to the games.

Not that that was needed. The mines and the town took their hockey seriously enough to import most of the players from junior leagues and professional minor leagues in the South, players like the small but speedy forward, Clarence "Shorty" Brown.

Brown started playing for the Yellowknife Town Indians in the 1950-51 season, lured from the intermediate A hockey he was playing in Edmonton with a three-month contract that paid $300 per month with free room and board.

Not all of the players were imports. The YDHA also included a feeder league, the Mercantile League, to help develop local talent.

Pat "Moose" Balsillie and Sandy Loutit were among the locals who made the jump, but unlike the rest of those who graduated the year he did, Balsillie went to the Giant Grizzlies, not the town team. (He later switched to the Con Cougars.) His father, for whom the championship cup awarded at the annual Balsillie Oldtimers Tournament is named, worked for Giant.

Because the league was small -- the number of teams dwindled to three after the Negus squad folded with the mine -- there were plenty of opportunities for players to get to know and dislike each other over the course of the season.

Were there any teams in particular that didn't get along?

"All of them," said Balsillie. "You left it on

the ice, but there was still a rivalry."

It didn't take long for Brown to learn how heated the games could get. During his second or third week of play in the league he took a penalty behind the net for dumping one of his opponents.

As he skated toward the penalty box, the offending player rammed him from behind as the penalty box door was opening.

"If he had left the door closed I would have just rammed up against it, but he opened it. My foot hit the outside, I went down and I broke my jaw, broke my nose took two teeth out and cracked a rib -- that's how hard he hit me from behind."

The intensity of the rivalries and the skill of the players made the senior men's league the main entertainment attraction in town.

"There was no TV at that time, that's why they used to pack the arena," Loutit, a high-scoring forward said. "The whole town pretty well turned out."

Before the addition of the Zamboni room at the Frame Lake end of the rink, the arena was filled to its 1,000-seat capacity for the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday night battles.

The arena's capacity dropped to 700 with the renovation but, said Balsillie, even for the weeknight games, the arena remained packed.

"In those days they never had a Zamboni," Walcer said, referring to the 1960s. "The kids used to fight to push the snow down to the far end of the rink. They'd load the snow up in scoop shovels. Later on they had a little sort of barrel they filled with hot water that they would flood the rink with."

Golden moments

You can still hear a bit of the rivalry that existed in Balsillie's voice as he described his most memorable game of those golden days of hockey in Yellowknife.

It was the final game of the 1963-64 season and the climax of an intense final against Brown's Indians.

"We were tied three games each, best of seven and town had us 4-0 going into the third period and we beat them 5-4," said Balsillie. "Sandy'll remember that one."

Balsillie, who had dropped back to defence after starting out his hockey playing forward, was one of the leaders of the Giant team. He launched the comeback by breaking the doughnut three minutes into the final frame.

But Balsillie said it was the younger Grizzly players, and their energy, that made the difference.

The moment that stands out for Brown occurred the season before.

The town team had their backs to the wall. With a tie or a loss they would have been eliminated from playoff contention.

The town team was attempting to protect a 2-1 edge against a last ditch charge by the Grizzlies. With the final minute ticking down, Giant got control of the puck and made one last rush up ice.

"This guy on Giant came down and the defenceman that was with me fell down," recalled Brown. "The guy let a slap shot go and I put my hand up figuring I could catch it. It went right through my mitt, hit me in the face, and knocked me cold. All I can remember is waking up and we'd won the game."

The town team went on to win the league championship that year, the first time in a decade they had a chance to hold the symbol of that feat, the coveted Walter How Memorial Cup.

For many who were raised here and who raised their children here, the best memories of Gerry Murphy are not those of their days skating on its surface but seeing their children do so.

"My most favourite time in the old rink was skating in there with my kids," Walcer said. "There have been so many great times seeing my two children learning to skate there.

"It was kind of emotional for us last Saturday (April 20) when they had the last public skate," Walcer said.

He was the last skater off the ice that day, which was marked as the last day of skating on Gerry Murphy ice.