Victoria Skating Rink - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Victoria Skating Rink was an indoor skating rink located in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, which opened in 1862. The building was used during winter seasons for pleasure skating, ice hockey and skating sports on a natural ice rink. In summer months, the building was used for various other events, including musical performances and horticultural shows. It was the first building in Canada to be electrified.

The Rink may be most famous for its connection to ice hockey history. It holds the distinction of having hosted the first-ever recorded organized indoor ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

match on March 3, 1875. The ice surface dimensions set the standard for today's North American ice hockey rinks. It was also the location of the first Stanley Cup

Stanley Cup

The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...

playoff

Playoff

The playoffs, postseason, or finals of a sports league are a game or series of games played after the regular season by the top competitors, usually but not always with a single-elimination system, to determine the league champion or a similar accolade.In the U.S...

games in 1894 and the location of the founding of the first championship ice hockey league, the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada in 1886. Frederick Stanley

Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby

Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby KG, GCB, GCVO, PC , known as Frederick Stanley until 1886 and as Lord Stanley of Preston between 1886 and 1893, was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom who served as Colonial Secretary from 1885 to 1886 and the sixth Governor General...

, the donor of the Stanley Cup, witnessed his first ice hockey game there in 1889. In 1896, telegraph wires were connected at the Rink to do simultaneous score-by-score description of a Stanley Cup challenge series between Montreal and Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

, Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

teams, a first of its kind.

It was located in central Montreal between Drummond Street

Drummond Street, Montreal

Drummond Street is a north-south street located in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Spanning a total of 1.2 kilometres, it links Doctor Penfield Avenue in the north and De la Gauchetière Street in the south. Drummond Street opened in 1842 and owes its name to Jane Drummond , wife of Montreal...

and Stanley Street

Stanley Street, Montreal

Stanley Street is a north-south street located in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It links Doctor Penfield Avenue in the north and De la Gauchetière Street in the south...

, just north of René Lévesque Boulevard

René Lévesque Boulevard

René Lévesque Boulevard is one of the main streets in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.It is a main east-west thoroughfare passing through the downtown core in the borough of Ville-Marie. The street begins on the west at Atwater Avenue and continues until it merges with Notre Dame Street East just east...

(formerly Dorchester Boulevard). It was located one block to the west of Dominion Square (today's Dorchester Square), where the Montreal Winter Carnivals of the 19th century were held. The rink was sold in 1925 and today the site is occupied by a parking garage. | |}>

Building

Designed by Lawford & Nelson, Architects, the building was a long (252 feet (76.8 m) x 113 feet (34.4 m)) wide, two-story brick edifice with a 52 feet (15.8 m)-high pitched roof supported from within by curving wooden trusses, which arched over the entire width of the structure. Tall, round-arched windows punctuated its length and illuminated its interior, while evening skating was made possible by 500 gas-jet lighting fixtures set in coloured glass globes. At a later date, the lighting was converted to electric, making the building the first in Canada to be electrified.

The ice surface measured 204 feet (62.2 m) by 80 feet (24.4 m), dimensions very similar to today's National Hockey League

National Hockey League

The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

(NHL) ice rinks. It was surrounded by a 10 feet (3 m)-wide platform, or promenade, which was elevated approximately 1 feet (30.5 cm) above the ice surface and upon which spectators could stand or skaters could rest. Later, a gallery was added with a royal box for visiting dignitaries. The ice itself was a 'natural' ice surface, frozen by the coldness of the season, not by the later invention of mechanically-frozen ice.

At the time of its construction, the Rink's location at 49 Drummond Street (now renumbered to 1187), placed it in the centre of the English community in Montreal, in the vicinity of McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

. The area is referred to today as the "Square Mile", the area of central Montreal populated then by rich English industrialists and the budding centre of commerce in Canada. One block east was Dominion Square, where annual outdoor winter sporting events were held and later the Montreal Winter Carnival was held. Across the street to the east, the Windsor Hotel

Windsor Hotel (Montreal)

The Windsor Hotel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, is often considered to be the first grand hotel in Canada, and for decades billed itself as "the best in all the Dominion".-Early years:...

, a long-time centre of social life and meeting place of several sports organizations, was built in 1875. Nearby is old Windsor Station

Windsor Station (Montreal)

Windsor Station is a former train station in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, formerly serving as the city's Canadian Pacific Railway Station.Windsor Station was the Canadian Pacific Railway's headquarters built between 1887 and 1889. The Romanesque Revival building was designed by New York architect...

, which was the eastern terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

, built in 1889.

History

The Victoria Skating Club was incorporated on June 9, 1862, with a sizable capitalization of $12,000, for the purpose of buying the land and building the rink. The directors included members of prominent families of the Square Mile: John Greenshields, whose family owned the largest drygoods wholesale firm in Canada and James Torrance, whose family owned a prosperous provisions wholesale firm. The Rink, one of the first and largest indoor rinks in North America, was completed and opened on December 24, 1862. However, it was not the first indoor rink in Montreal. The first had opened in 1859, at the north end of St. Urbain Street, for the Montreal Skating Club. It was the first of numerous ice rinks in Canada to be named after Queen Victoria. By about 1880, membership in the Victoria Skating Club had reached 2,000, mostly drawn from Montreal's upper classes, who enjoyed considerable leisure time and could afford to participate in such events as the fancy-dress balls, which were a regular feature at the rink.

A quote from the 1870s that appeared in the book Montreal Yesterdays captures the essence:

“When many hundred persons are upon the ice, and with every variety of costume, pass through all the graceful figures that skaters delight in, the scene presented to the spectator is dazzling in the extreme.”

The rink became a major attraction for visitors to Montreal. In 1886, visiting Captain Willard Glazer described the scene:

“One of the principal points of attraction in both winter and summer is the Victoria Skating Rink, in Dominion Square. This extensive building is used during the milder months of the year for horticultural shows, concerts and miscellaneous gatherings. In the winter the doors of this place are thronged with a crowd of sleighs and sleigh drivers, while inside, skaters and spectators form a living, moving panorama, pleasant to look upon. The place is lighted by gas, and men and women, old and young, with a plentiful sprinkling of children, on skates, are practicing all sorts of gyrations. The ladies are prettily and appropriately dressed in skating costumes, and some of them are proficient in the art of skating. The spectators sit or stand on a raised lege around the ice parallelogram, while the skaters dart off, singly or in pairs, executing quadrilles, waltzes, curves, straight lines, letters, labyrinths, and every conceivable figure. Now and then some one comes to grief in the surging, moving throng; but is quickly on his or her feet again, the ice and water shaken off, and the zigzag resumed. Children skate; boys and girls; ladies and gentlemen, and even dignified military officers. Some skate well, some medium, some shockingly ill; but all skate, or essay to do so. It is the grand Montrealese pastime, and though the ice is sloppy, and the air chill and heavy with moisture, everybody has a good time.”

The Rink hosted pleasure skating and masquerade balls during the 1880s Montreal Winter Carnivals, which took place a city block to the east in Dominion Square.

Ice hockey

The first game

On March 3, 1875, the Rink hosted what has been recognized as the first indoor organized ice hockey game, between members of the Club, organized by James Creighton, a member of the Victoria Skating Club and a figure skating judge. The match lays claim to this distinction because of several factors which establish its link to modern ice hockey: it featured two teams (nine players per side), goaltenders, a referee, a puck, a pre-determined set of rules, including a pre-determined length of time (60 minutes) with a recorded score. Games prior to this had mostly been outdoors, with sticks and balls, with informal rules and informal team sizes. In order to limit injuries to spectators and damage to glass windows, the game was played with a wooden puck

Puck (sports)

A puck is a disk used in various games serving the same functions as a ball does in ball games. The best-known use of pucks is in ice hockey, a major international sport.- Etymology :The origin of the word "puck" is obscure...

instead of a lacrosse

Lacrosse

Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...

ball, possibly the first time such an object was used. The two teams, members of the Club, included a number of McGill University

McGill University

students. Sticks and skates for this game were imported from Nova Scotia, including Mic-mac sticks and Starr skates. This first game was pre-announced to the general public in the pages of The (Montreal) Gazette newspaper:

Announcement

Victoria Rink - A game of Hockey will be played at the Victoria Skating Rink this evening, between two nines chose from among the members. Good fun may be expected, as some of the players are reputed to be exceedingly expert at the game. Some fears have been expressed on the part of intending spectators that accidents were likely to occur through the ball flying about in too lively a manner, to the imminent danger of lookers on, but we understand that the game will be played with a flat circular piece of wood, thus preventing all danger of its leaving the surface of the ice. Subscribers will be admitted on presentation of their tickets.

By moving ice hockey game indoors, the smaller dimensions of the rink initiated a major change from the outdoor version of the game, limiting organized contests to a nine-man limit per team. Until that time, outdoor games had no prescribed number of players, the number being more or less the number that could fit on a frozen pond or river and often ranged in the dozens. The nine-man per side rule would last until the 1880s, when it was reduced during the Montreal Winter Carnival Hockey Tournament to seven per side.

Role in organized ice hockey
From 1875 until 1881, hockey matches would be held between hockey-playing members of the Skating Club and outside teams, such as McGill University

McGill University

and the Montreal Hockey Club

Montreal Hockey Club

The Montreal Hockey Club of Montreal, Quebec, Canada was a senior-level men's amateur ice hockey club, organized in 1884. They were affiliated with Montreal Amateur Athletic Association and used the MAAA 'winged wheel' logo. The team is notable for winning the first Stanley Cup in 1893, and in a...

. In 1881, the Victoria Hockey Club

Montreal Victorias

The Victoria Hockey Club of Montreal, Quebec, Canada was an early men's amateur ice hockey club. Its date of origin is ascribed to either 1874, 1877 or 1881, making it either the first or second organized ice hockey club after McGill University. The club played at its own rink, the Victoria Skating...

was organized and made the Rink its home. Play at first was by exhibition only as there were no leagues. The Rink was used for exhibition games or as an indoor facility if the outdoor rink was not available during the annual Winter Carnivals. It was for the 1883 Carnival that hockey team sizes were reduced further, to seven per side, which was the common size for the next thirty years. Eventually the tournament play led to plans for a league. The Rink hosted the founding meeting of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada (AHAC) league in December 1886. The AHAC was the second organized ice hockey league in Canada, and the first championship league.

Lord Stanley, later to donate the Stanley Cup

Stanley Cup

trophy, witnessed his first ice hockey game at the Victoria Rink on February 4, 1889, seeing the Victorias defeat the Montreal Hockey Club

Montreal Hockey Club

2–1. According to The Globe, "the vice-regal party was immensely delighted with it." The Rink would later host the first Stanley Cup playoffs in 1894. By that time, the building had gained an elevated balcony for additional spectators and a projecting loge, precursor of today's luxury boxes. In 1896, the rink was connected by telegraph to distribute the Montreal-Winnipeg Stanley Cup series score immediately. This is considered the first ice hockey broadcast by wire.

Ice skating

The Rink was built for the Victoria Skating Club and skating was its primary use at first. The Rink was prominent in the development of the sports of figure skating and speed skating. Figure skating, known as "fancy skating" began in the 1860s and the Rink held championships starting in the 1870s. A combination of racing and fancy skating championships was held in February 1888 was announced internationally in the February 1, 1888 New York Times. The races were "220 yards, quarter mile, half mile, mile, five miles, 220 yards over six hurdles 27 inches high, and junior championship races." This was followed a week later by the fancy skating championship of figures.

Victoria Rink was the home rink of Louis Rubenstein

Louis Rubenstein

Louis Rubenstein was a Canadian figure skater, sportsman and politician. Rubenstein is considered the "Father of Canadian Figure Skating." After retirement from skating in 1892, Rubenstein became involved in the sports of bowling, curling, and cycling...

, Canadian and world figure skating champion. Rubenstein first won the Montreal Championship in 1878, and won his first Canadian championship at the Victoria Rink in 1883. At the time, the Victoria Skating Club was considered "the most important one in the Dominion, if not on the continent." In 1887, the Club arranged for the formation of the Amateur Skating Association of Canada, the first national governing body of skating in Canada.

In 1906, the Victoria Skating Club sold the rink, dissolving the Club. Ice skating continued under the new ownership, and on December 19, 1908, the Earl Grey Skating Club was founded at the Victoria Rink. In a ceremony at the rink, the club's patron Governor-General Grey formally. Club honourary president Sir H. Montagu Allan

H. Montagu Allan

Sir Hugh Andrew Montague Allan, CVO was a Canadian banker, ship owner, and a sportsman who donated the Allan Cup, the trophy symbolic of men's amateur ice hockey supremacy in Canada.-Early life:...

and Lady Evelyn Grey were the first to appear on the ice. Mrs. Helen Joseph became the president of the Club. The Earl Grey Club would move to the Montreal Arena

Montreal Arena

The Montreal Arena, also known as Westmount Arena, was an indoor arena located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on the corner of St. Catherine Street and Wood Avenue. It was likely one of the first arenas designed expressly for hockey, opening in 1898...

by 1911.

Musical performances

The Rink hosted many musical performances. In 1878, a benefit concert was held to aid yellow fever

Yellow fever

Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....

victims in the southern states of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, featuring soprano Leonora Braham

Leonora Braham

Leonora Braham , born Leonora Lucy Abraham, was an English opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas....

. In 1890, an audience of 6,000 attended a benefit for Montreal's Notre-Dame Hospital featuring a performance by soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

Emma Albani

Dame Emma Albani DBE was a leading soprano of the 19th century and early 20th century, and the first Canadian singer to become an international star. Her repertoire focused on the operas of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and Wagner...

, as well as pianist and composer Salomon Mazurette, violinist Alfred De Sève

Alfred De Sève

Alfred De Sève was a Canadian violinist, composer, and music educator. His compositional output includes works for violin and piano, solo piano, and orchestra; many of which were published by Arthur P. Schmidt and Charles H...

, and the Montreal City Band under the direction of Ernest Lavigne. The rink is also known to have held performances of the Montreal Philharmonic Society, which existed from 1875 to 1899.

Other events

The Rink was large enough to be used for conferences and exhibitions during the months that no ice was installed. From the 1860s onwards, the Rink hosted the annual Montreal Horticultural Society Exhibition each September. A description of the 1864 exhibition notes that "in addition to prizes for Agriculture, Horticulture, Poultry, Birds, Paint, etc., $200 is offered as prizes for the best band and best solo performer on bugle, fife and drum." The Presbyterian Church held meetings and assemblies including an assembly of Sunday School students on October 1, 1887 in honour of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, attended by approximately 10,000 children. The programme included "singing by the children and by the Fisk Jubilee singers, and exhibition by a number of deaf mutes and also by several Indians from Algoma."

In September 1891, the National Electric Association of the United States held its convention in Montreal, including demonstrations of electrical technology by Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...

and a public lecture by Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...

. In August 1897, the British Medical Association held a medical conference with an exhibition of pharmaceutical preparations, surgical and medical appliances, and "everything that interests the physician" at the Rink.

Decline

By 1906, the building needed repairs and rather than spend money on rebuilding the Rink, the Victoria Skating Club sold the site to J. William Shaw, a piano merchant, who planned to build a concert hall on the site. Shaw planned to rebuild the structure into an auditorium of 2,000 to 2,500 capacity, suitable for orchestra or opera concerts. Shaw deferred his plans due to the high cost of construction and a low expectation of profits. He continued the use of the building for skating and hockey matches, introducing a summer use for car parking.

Smaller hockey leagues continued to use the Rink, such as the Commercial and Steamship League, the Inter-School Hockey League and the Manufacturers' League. McGill University

McGill University

also occasionally used the rink. The final game of any note reported by the Montreal Gazette was a semi-final of the Canadian National Railway Hockey League (CNR) between Car Department and General Office on March 3, 1925, exactly fifty years after the first game. The playoff final game of the CNR league was not held at the Victoria; it was held at the Forum

Montreal Forum

The Montreal Forum was an indoor arena located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Called "the most storied building in hockey history" by Sporting News, it was home of the National Hockey League's Montreal Maroons from 1924 to 1938 and the Montreal Canadiens from 1926 to 1996...

which had opened that season. The CNR game drew 1,200 spectators.

During the summer months, dog shows, vaudeville performances, the horticultural show and various trade exhibitions continued at the Rink. By the 1920s, the building had deteriorated and the gallery became unsafe to use. Shaw sold the site in 1925 for $250,000 to the Stanley Realty Corporation to build a parking garage. The Victoria closed and a parking garage was built in its place.

Today

As shown in the photos, the parking garage is still in use by a local branch of National Car Rental

National Car Rental

National Car Rental is a rental car company based in Clayton, Missouri. National was founded by 24 independent rental car agents on August 27, 1947...

. Today, the highest level of ice hockey is played nearby at Centre Bell, the home arena of the NHL Montreal Canadiens

Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The club is officially known as ...

, located two blocks south. Ice skating for pleasure remains a popular pastime and an indoor ice skating rink exists nearby in the concourse of the 'Le 1000 de la Gauchetiere' office building, open year-round.

IIHF recognition

In 2002, the International Ice Hockey Federation

International Ice Hockey Federation

The International Ice Hockey Federation is the worldwide governing body for ice hockey and in-line hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 70 members...

(IIHF) announced that it would acknowledge the site of the Rink with "a commemorative plaque or other historical site marker to remind the passers-by of the existence of the Victoria Skating Rink, the birthplace of organized hockey." The commemoration has been marked in two ways. On May 22, 2008, a commemorative plaque was dedicated at Centre Bell, along with a plaque honouring James Creighton. Further, the IIHF created the Victoria Cup, a trophy named for the arena, for which—along with 1 million Swiss francs—one National Hockey League

National Hockey League

team and the champion of the European Champions Hockey League

Champions Hockey League

The Champions Hockey League was a short-lived ice hockey league which was launched in 2008 by the International Ice Hockey Federation and only played in the 2008–09 season. Its creation coincided with the IIHF's 100th anniversary and replaced the IIHF European Champions Cup, the former competition...

play off annually. The first Cup match was held in Berne, Switzerland on October 1, 2008 between the New York Rangers

New York Rangers

The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...

and the Metallurg Magnitogorsk

Metallurg Magnitogorsk

Metallurg Magnitogorsk is a professional ice hockey team based in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. They are members of the Kharlamov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League...

External links

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