The rink also served as a venue for recreational pursuits such as broom-ball. Mnemosyne 1963. p. 63.
Even with such exciting novelties as hard-court tennis and Canadian football, hockey remained the perennial SDU favourite, which made the new rink especially welcome. The 1961-1962 team poses here with some of their fans and their coach, Father Frank Ledwell: a young teacher at St. Dunstan’s High School when this photo was taken, Ledwell would go on to be a popular English professor at SDU and then at UPEI; by the time of his death in 2008, he had become one of the Island’s best-loved writers and storytellers. G. Harris SDU Photographic Collection (UPEI Archives Acc #: 2013-250), Image 20-7907.
Festivities at the opening of the new rink in January 1959 included a costume skate, an event which became something of an annual tradition thereafter. G. Harris SDU Photographic Collection (UPEI Archives Acc #: 2013-250), Image 06-7613.
The stark-but-sturdy rink, shown here ca. 1961, would become a familiar sight for generations of hockey players and skaters, both from the University and the community at large. It remained in service until 2002. G. Harris SDU Photographic Collection (UPEI Archives Acc #: 2013-250), Image 43-0735.