Barb met with us at the Arena and with all her years of involvement within the Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club, here is just a snippet:

"In the late 1980's Dr. (Helmut) May was involved in setting up a sports school..."

The office of the Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club

Barb dressed perfectly for a day at the Arena!

A cool vintage Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club sweater from the 1960's!

Barb Insley McBride so kindly chatted with us one morning at the Kerrisdale Seniors Centre. She was involved with the Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club and quite a skater...

"That's called the stag jump, that was my signature jump, it wasn't difficult for me although I am glad someone took a picture of it, there's proof!"

Here is Barb, age 10, playing the 'boy' part in the Carnival

Red Robinson so kindly sat down with us to talk about his first hand experience with the concerts at the Kerrisdale Arena...

"In essence Bill Haley and the Comets in June 1956 was the first Rock and Roll show EVER in Vancouver!"

Thanks to Phil Mackesy for all his archival photo help!

A Vancouver journalist and historian emailed us about his own research in regards to the history of the Kerrisdale Arena. He met with us and shared what he learned and his own personal connection to the place...

"I grew up about four blocks away from the Arena and spent the first 25 years of my life in Kerrisdale, attending Quilchena Elementary and later Point Grey Highschool - so the rink was always a bit of a fixture in my days growing up there.
I remember very well how crazy it was when those concerts happened. There was real pandemonium some nights. And In so far as the concert history of Vancouver goes, those events were really unique. Beyond the fact that The Clash came to Kerrisdale (which alone is rather remarkable), but a number of people who worked putting on those shows went on to be very large players within the international concert industry. It’s quite something."

We talked to Sylvia over the phone about an event that lasted over 40 years at the Kerrisdale Arena...

"It was really about community, it was completely volunteer run and in fact it gave me the inspiration for my volunteerism that continues to be an important part of my life!"

Maureen brought the Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club scrapbooks to the Arena one afternoon...

"I started skating here in 1950, in fact I used my babysitting money, 25 cents an hour, to pay for my Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club membership! 
I've been in some of the Carnivals but I wasn't a competitive skater. I didn't have the money for 'patch' (when you practiced your figures) but if you were a member of the club and the community centre you could skate in the mornings for free! So I would haul across on the bus with my skates and books and do 'patch' for free and then go to school!

They used to put a rope up at the end of the rink and Dr Helmut May would be teaching figure skating and the other part of the rink was used for the public and I would watch and listen and copy and he noticed this and then got a group of us together and taught us together once a month! I really liked the figures. I eventually went into adult dance sessions and even won a 'senior dance' trophy with my partner Gordon Fox in 1963."

Top left Maureen and Gord in 1963

"I'm now one the board of the KFSC."

Here are a few more of Maureen's memories....

Margot can often be found at the Kerrisdale Arena, and although President of the Arena's own Figure Skating Club for 26 years, her childhood was also busy with, you guessed it, skating!

"...everybody belonged to the skating club..."

Joy dropped by the Arena one day and had so many stories, memories and connections to the neighbourhood! 

Here is a snippet of her skating memories:

"The dues were $13 dollars a year...."

 

Brent lived in the  Kerrisdale area most of his life. In fact he remembers living at 38th and Blenheim and taking the interurban from 41st to 49th to get to Magee Secondary School - he was too lazy to walk- haha!

He also remembers the huge vegetable gardens between the Kerrisdale Arena and Point Grey School and of course he remembers his days as a stick boy (and towel boy)....

Ross emailed these memories as well...

My biggest memories of this great building were as a kid growing up in North Richmond... we played hockey every Saturday morning at Kerrisdale Arena from the time I was six years old till I was 12 (1958 - 64). My coach and neighbour Doug Norris Sr, ex 1940’s Canuck, coached us. We would then leave the Arena and go home to play soccer in the Richmond League and THEN...at about 1:30 PM a whole huge carload of us in a ’52 Pontiac or Chevy (no seat belts of course) would come back to the rink for the afternoon recreational skate!!

I love to come to the Arena once in a while sit and watch a hockey game, the dressing rooms, concourse, the seats it just feels like one of those places in Vancouver you can go to that hasn't really changed. That's a hard thing to find. I love the inside roof - I wish they did not cover the ceiling insulation (although I get it) - because it has a glorious framing and a beautiful old wooden roof, painted white. My parents and grandparents (born in Vancouver in 1892) lived in Kerrisdale in the 20’s 30’s & 40’s, it has a special sentimental attachment to me as my kids played some hockey there - that's four generations of Vancouver born and bred, in my family, of people using the Kerrisdale Arena.

Bev came and visited at the Arena bringing incredible photos and great memories, here is what she had to say:

I must have been about 9 when I put on my first pair of skates at a public session at Kerrisdale . I had no gloves and soon fell down. A kid skated right over my fingers and I was cut and bleeding - a terrible first experience on the ice! But somehow my parents got me back again and bought me a pair of skates!

My parents and brother, Howard, and I joined the Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club and we skated Club and Family sessions together. It was great fun. I really loved skating - no one could stop me! Betty Cornwall was the Pro (skating coach) at Kerrisdale Arena and I took lessons from her for 2 years. Then, around 1954-5, Dr. Helmut May came to Vancouver from Vienna, Austria and became the new Pro. My Dad was a Director of the club at the time and told Helmut “my daughter will take lessons from you”. I was Dr. May’s first pupil. His English was not that good but it got better but we all managed to understand. I did my tests and competed eagerly. Many times I wished I had started skating earlier as I would have completed my gold medal by the time I was 16. Helmut was a wonderful professional and he and his wife Doris, a ballet instructor and choreographer were quite a team. The annual Ice Shows were spectacular.

My mom would save up her housekeeping money to pay for my personal lessons. Dad didn't contribute at all. I took a job when I was 14 and went to work Saturdays for a radio importer, testing radio parts, labelling them and sweeping the sidewalk in front his shop for 60 cents an hour, saving every penny. I bought my first pair of custom made Knebli boots with Coronation Ace blades that way. They were extremely expensive ($200) back in the mid 50’s.

They were beautiful! My feet were still growing so every year new boots were required.

Several of us would come to the Arena at 6 in the morning with Dr. May and do 'patch' from 6-8am. At that time I went to Point Grey School for grades 7, 8, 9 so I would come back over after school 2-3 days a week and do free skate for an hour then go home, do my homework, have dinner and come back to skate from 6-8pm! It was my life and I loved it!

'Patch' is a section of ice that is the width of the arena and about 15 feet wide.  There were lines that we’d score across the arena and we would rent that 'patch' of ice to work on our figures.  We would do figures for an hour followed by an hour of free skate, working on jumps, footwork and programs.  Figures in those days were 60% of your score, when you were in competition, and free skate was 40%. Figures were always my hang-up. I'd pass my tests well but it was really hard work, you had to trace over a figure 8,  3-turn, bracket, or rocker - names for all these figures that we had to do.  It was nerve-wracking, the judges would be on their hands and knees watching and making sure you were on your outside edge or your inside edge and your turns were clean.  So it was really hard to win at competition, some girls were much better at figures than free skate.  Free skate was my real love and the way they judge today, my outcome would have been totally different.  I would win the free skate but I would be 2nd or 3rd in the figures back then!  Today you do a short skate program of jump and footwork elements followed by a full program incorporating all the elements along with more artistic and interpretive elements.

Stephie Brown and Bev in Junior Ladies Pairs

I was about 12 when I won the free skating competition at the club and it was just a fun little thing and then Stephie and I skated ladies pairs and we won the Junior Ladies Pairs. I think Harry Atkinson took these photos of us. I had braces on and didn't smile very readily. 

Sandra Holmes' Mom was the secretary for the Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club.  Sandy skated with me at Club sessions, this picture was taken in 1953. The “had to have thing” in those days was the knitted skating skirt.  They were hand knit, usually by the Moms, and they were absolutely gorgeous. 

This picture shows Linda Clark and my mom and you can see the knitted dresses were fitted from the waist to the hips and then the skirts flared out and our mothers used to make these! My mom would take a whole summer to knit mine but other mothers could knit them much quicker. 

Several parents would come skate and monitor the junior sessions just to help get the kids organized. We would do dances like the Dutch Waltz or The Swing. Then they would get everybody lined up and we would have a Grand March in the middle of the arena and end up in a giant pinwheel.

These are funny pictures, they are both 1954, my Mom and I are about to do the Dutch Waltz... 

...and in this one my Dad and Mom are at a Halloween party! There were a lot of different kind of skating parties.

My brother, Howard, skated and my much younger brother, Brian came along to Family sessions too! He sat on my boots most of the time and I would take him for a ride!

We used to have incredible Ice Carnivals here! I remember the first year I had just started to skate and I was a toadstool in Fantasia’s The China Dance, another year we were Queen’s Courtiers and we had to go out and dance the Dutch Waltz in big white wigs and beautiful silk costumes. The costumes were all made to measure so we went several times to a big factory where the ladies measured and fitted us. It was a big deal and the shows were always a sell-out!

When Dr. May arrived we then did a Vienna Ice Review and that was truly amazing. Dr. May could skate on stilt blades and he did a solo one year. It was breath-taking and scary watching him jump as he was so high off the ice. Several of us had solo performances and they were exciting as the coloured spotlights would follow you around the arena.

There was a lovely lady on the Blvd that would make our dresses - mine (far right) was white lame lined with pale pink satin and pale pink lace at the neck

Then, in January of 1958, I was in the Western Canadian championships and that was held at the Kerrisdale Arena. To participate in the Western Canadians, competitors came from anywhere west of Sudbury Ontario. I came third that year. Patsy came first.  She had was a lovely free skater and she was much better at figures than me.   Leslie was exceptional at figures. 

I skated to Spanish music during the juniors and this costume was red and gold - I absolutely loved that one!

The next championship was the B.C. Coast and I won the Ladies Junior Singles. It was the one that was in the Province newspaper with my leg up in the air! That was December of the same year as Westerns but almost a year later.

The Kerrisdale Arena had a concession – opposite the skate rental and sharpening shop. The concession had the best hot chocolate - the Arena was a bustling place back then, it was a neat place to be. It was relatively new and it was the best of the best at the time! Brian Legge was the disc jockey for the Club and he’d play the music for the sessions, in the little box high up at centre ice. The club sessions were really fun! Juvenile sessions were 6-8 years old I believe, followed by Juniors and Intermediates and Seniors. It was mixed skating (boys and girls). Friday nights was public skate - as I got older - I had friends and the odd boyfriend who would come and skate and Helmut (Dr. May) would have a fit because it was 8-10pm after patch (6-8pm on Friday night) and he would say "you are ruining your skates, don't use your good skates out there, you will ruin your blades!" I’d sneak on after he left and we would just go round and round and we were cheek to jowl, the place was absolutely PACKED! It was the happening place on Friday nights. It probably cost 25 cents and the music would be blasting and we would be holding hands it was really fun. Then we would all turn around and go the other direction.




Dr. May tried to encourage us to keep going and compete in bigger and bigger competitions but there was a great expense involved, you had to pay your own way, it meant more lessons and more ice time, and in those days nothing was funded by the Figure Skating Association. Besides the commitment, there is also the stress of competing, you start to get more nervous and anxious and I felt I just didn't need that. I decided to just skate for pleasure. I was almost 18, was going into grade 12 and I had to think about university and what I was going to do and so although I did skate for fun, I couldn't go on like I had done before - throwing my whole self into it. If only I had started younger!!


The Arena hasn't changed since then. I still have boots and have come and skated. About 10-15 years ago, I was working nearby so I thought I would come over at lunch to skate and I bumped into Helmut and told him my boots were old and he said he had a pair of Wifa’s for one of his pupils that didn't fit properly and he said "You try these on" and it was like they were made to measure for me so I bought them from him and I still have them and I still skate. I also have a grandson and granddaughter that are skaters albeit hockey players but excellent skaters!

Monty sent this email.

The arena opened when I was about 9 years old.  My Grandfather lived in an apartment block on the corner of 43rd & West Blvd and he bought me my first skates.  

This photo - taken in 1950 - shows The new Arena and Point Grey School. (vintage air photos)

I loved public skating, I never really played hockey. I spent my Sunday mornings (instead of going to Sunday School at Ryerson where my Mom had sent me) watching Beer League Hockey and talking my way into helping clean the ice as none of the older Rink Rats* would show up on Sundays. Finally when I was 12, I convinced the ice maintenance guy, George Tough, (he became a Vancouver city cop) that I could be a "professional" paid Rink Rat for 25 cents per scrape (four guys were paid 25 cents per scrape or the whole dollar if only one guy was there - like on Sunday mornings ). There were 8 Rink Rats and the first 4 to sign in were paid. My sign in was 'Cordink' and I once got two pay envelopes, one for Monty and one for Cordink! We were all just school kids who loved to skate and hang around the Arena. After skating many of us would head to The Avenue Grill! I got to watch and clean the ice for the Kerrisdale Monarchs Hockey team (vs Vernon and Penticton).

Because we were Arena staff, the door man would just let us into events. We had our own change room at the Arena so we could just stand at the top of the seats and look important. I saw Bill Haley and some time later we saw Little Richard! Both times was after the ice was out and we helped set up rows of chairs on the floor. Tickets were sold for stand seats and floor seats. Bill Haley played on a stage. Little Richard also performed on the stage but he moved up and down the centre floor isle as well. They both sang all their current popular songs of the day... they had quite a few! The shows were at 7pm and lasted for a good 90 minutes. Everyone in the audience was behaved.

Little Richard

I met many girls public skating and chatted up many a young figure skater as I was alway there during non school hours to clean their ice - special for patch**. I was a winter Rink Rat until I was 18 and when the Zamboni came along I copped*** public skating until I was 20. My association with the rink allowed me to get into Saturday morning Public Skating and when I was 22 and my first born was 2 he also learned to skate.

When I was 24 we moved to Kelowna and when I walked into their Memorial Arena (opened one year after the Kerrisdale Arena) it had the exact architectural plan as Kerrisdale: dressing room locations; concessions; and those big, steep entrance inclines to the top of the seating area.

Kerrisdale Arena's steep entrance incline.

I remember people like Mr Elliot Manager (he played rock and roll music during the Friday Night Public Skate) & Harry the engineer. Bruce Graham became the Ice Maintenance guy after George Tough. I remember the tractor and the planer**** - and my favourite job was holding the planer back on the corners in the middle of public skating breaks when I had an audience!
I owe my association with the arena to keeping me out of a lot of possible trouble on the streets of Kerrisdale during my teen years.

* In a time before the Zamboni, Rink Rats would hang around the Arena and clean the ice in between events (public skating, hockey, figure skating). A 'scraper' was pushed around the ice to clear the snow off and then the 'ice man' (arena employee) would hook up a hose with hot water to a large 'hot pad' and drag it - walking backwards - over the now snowless scraped ice.  A Rink Rat would pull the hose behind the pad to help the ice man. 

** Patch was when figure skaters were allotted a certain section of ice to practice their figures (for instance figure 8's). They needed 'new' ice in order to see their markings of their inside and outside edges - to see how they were doing. After an hour they would do their pirouettes.

***During public skating an adultish person would skate and patrol to keep the speedsters in check. Thus we were 'ice cops'. When the Zamboni eliminated Rink Rats in about 1959, I was 18 and pretty experienced with conduct on the ice, so I was paid for 2 more years at evening and Saturday public skating even though I now had a full time day job.

****The tractor pulled the planer which was used when heavy use was cutting up the ice (public skating and senior hockey). The planer had a sharp razor type blade that trimmed the ice. The planer had to be held back (braked) as the tractor entered each turn as it went around the ice surface. A good skater Rink Rat would do this braking job, then after that was done, that Rink Rat would join the 3 others to clear the snow off before the hot-pad was brought out. The Zamboni eliminated: Rink Rats, Tractors, Planers & Hot Pads. The Arena just needed one person: the Ice Man....BOO HOO!

Sandra and Keith all decked out and on their way to Kerrisdale Arena!

Sandra attended Bill Hailey & His Comets with her brother Keith on June 27th, 1956. Jack Cullen's  Music Store sponsored the event and Sandra remembers the store along East Hastings somewhere. It was where they bought the tickets! Sandra can't exactly remember if she bought the tickets or if her mother bought them but remembers liking the music and having a good time.

Below are her memorabilia she donated to the Kerrisdale archives. Some great stuff!

The original ticket stubs! And the envelope they came in. (Notice the 'good tasting' advertisement and the cost of the tickets!)

The concert program! Sandra says $1.00 was a lot of money at the time!

This was the album that Bill Haley would be pulling songs from at the concert!

Shake, Rattle and Roll!