The story of Campbell Rink.

Campbell Rink is in a park surrounded by houses only slightly bigger than those around Queensway Park. Most of them were built just before or just after World War One. Campbell Park was established on three adjoining parcels of former industrial land at the urging of the Perth-Royce Community Council (Mrs. Beryl Campbell was the president), in 1946. One of the three properties had a coal yard and a cartage business at one time. The second piece of land was owned by Eastern Power devices but used only for storage, and the third was a former depot for the Willard Storage Battery Co. (There were many industries in this working-class area because it was criss-crossed by rail lines).

As soon as the city bought the land, Campbell Park was set up for summer field sports and winter outdoor skating, on a natural-ice rink. The first compressor-cooled rink and field house were probably built sometime in the 1960’s. The rink pad was replaced in 2001, but the field house, a homely rectangular block-and-bricks building, remained unchanged except for the addition of one large front window in the change room, facing the street, and one smaller window in the office, facing the park.

From the early 1990s to around 2005, Campbell Rink had not only neighbourhood skaters but also a good deal of drug-related commerce. The change room was sometimes locked for weeks at a time, to discourage the drug dealing and the fighting. But eventually someone would get hold of keys from some source, and then there would be an illegal winter clubhouse scene until neighbours noticed and called the police. Eventually an older city part-time staff was assigned there, to keep better order. He put in a little TV set and a pop cooler, and on rainy or snowy days, a few skater friends and some of the flying squad zamboni drivers used to join him in his cozy office (sometimes for much of their shift).

Tino said the Dufferin Rink staff could try to turn Campbell Rink around. The reclaiming of Campbell Rink was very different from Wallace Rink (chronicled earlier). Campbell Rink is tucked inside what was until recently a largely Portuguese neighborhood, far from any major streets with transit, and it’s a single pad. It was all shinny hockey all the time. Kids learned by hanging around the edges of adult shinny games – there was no time set aside exclusively for little kids. The sink-or-swim method resulted in excellent shinny skills, partly because so many of the players were each other’s cousins. They would look out for each other and help younger kids in a tough-love sort of way. Pleasure-skaters who wanted room to glide stood no chance, though, and as new people moved into the neighbourhood, they began to complain about the monoculture of fast, do-or-die shinny hockey.

The recreation staff started their changes off slowly. The TV was removed from the office, and small snacks and cookies were made available at the counter. In 2007, the staff organized the youth into an all-day shinny tournament with real referees, and it was a hit. Staff introduced a two-hour pleasure-skating time, with a campfire at the side of the rink, and they made donuts in a deep-fry pan right on the fire. The pleasure-skating time slot got only grudging acceptance until Michael Monastyrskyj, one of the older staff who lived around the corner from the rink, persuaded his colleagues to put on a DJ skate night. There was good music, free hot chocolate, and a campfire with meat roasted on a spit in the Portuguese style. That was a hit – more points for the staff.

The next year staff went through the Dufferin and Wallace skate-lending collection to get enough loaner skates, gloves, helmets, and hockey sticks for Campbell Rink. Some of the staff visited the surrounding schools and invited teachers to bring their classes – with free skate-lending and free hot chocolate. That worked, slowly at first. Campbell Rink had a bad reputation, and the city’s ice maintenance carried on being very intermittent. The city councillor was lobbied year after year by rink users (and by me) to help Campbell and Wallace Rinks get more ice maintenance. The ice maintenance gradually got better. Staff brought over a big pot and a hot plate to make hot chocolate, and a little fridge for cold drinks. They laid in a supply of pucks and hockey tape to sell at cost (or occasionally give away). They found a few tables and old stools, and with the money donated for food, they bought some chess and checker sets. A children’s corner was set up near the front window, with storybooks and paper and crayons. Young families started using the rink to spend both outdoor and indoor time with their kids – and that raised the general language level (everybody knows you don’t swear around little kids). As the rink began to diversify and flourish, the staff added some more food for hungry skaters – cookies and hot dogs and soup. Somebody donated a microwave.

But even the minimal food preparation made dirty dishes, and the staff began to feel uneasy about their many trips to the bathroom to fill up pots of water that would then be heated for dishwater on the hot plate. The office had not been set up as a food counter – what could be done to follow good health rules?

Then in the spring of 2011, the new Ward 18 City Councillor, Ana Bailao, gave Campbell Park a huge boost. She found some funds in the city budget to put in proper plumbing and wiring for the clubhouse office/kitchen/skate lending room. Rink friend David Rothberg donated funds to equip the kitchen and also to buy more skates.

On opening day the next season, Campbell Rink was full of shinny hockey players out on the ice. Inside, lead rink staff Marina DeLuca-Howard cooked macaroni and cheese in the new kitchen with plenty of help from the younger Campbell rink rats, who turned out to be avid cooks. Neighbours sat at the clubhouse tables and chatted over fair-trade coffee, and newcomers borrowed sticks and skates for their first-ever shinny hockey game. By early January, Marina and her colleagues and the rink kids began offering a Saturday Night Supper, and on the final Saturday of the month, the whole clubhouse was filled with tables and people enjoying their food. The kids served at the counter, and Councillor Bailao dropped in too.

I asked Councillor Bailao how much the wiring and plumbing had cost. She said she didn’t know the exact number – “a few thousand dollars.” Program staff for the whole rink season cost about $16,000 altogether. A version of the The familiar Mastercard ad might say – “having a neighbourhood rink clubhouse that’s warm and welcoming and OPEN, unlike the beautiful, deserted Queensway field house – priceless.” But it’s not priceless. It’s only cheaper – cheaper than building new state-of-the art recreation buildings and then having them sparsely used by private permits, or locked, as in our Etobicoke examples. Saving money that way is a waste of public funds: “penny wise but pound foolish.”

Meantime, over at Rosedale Rink, which is surrounded by large handsome mansions, the rink change area is cramped and windowless and there is not much conversation among neighbours. Instead of being welcomed by a community kitchen with friendly staff and shelves of loaner skates, skaters at Rosedale Rink are greeted by several large vending machines. If there’s a staff person at the rink, skaters can’t tell, because the office is at the back of the building with, no windows. Communication is done by signs giving various rules, including one making helmets mandatory for shinny hockey (pond hockey).

Toronto is a surprisingly upside-down city: people who live in mansions in Rosedale get less rink fun than people who live in basement flats across from the railway tracks. One thing is the same, though – few skaters wear helmets to play pond hockey, at either rink.