140 years of roller skating in Winnipeg Part 4 - A 1970s explosion

© 2022, Christian Cassidy

Part 1: Pre-1900
Part 2: The early 1900s
Part 3: The Depression and post-war years
Part 4: A 1970s explosion
Part 5: The people

July 28, 1956, Winnipeg Tribune

Part 4: A 1970s explosion

From the late 1950s to the late 1970s there was only one roller rink in town but that doesn't mean that roller skating was not growing in popularity during this time.

Thanks to new to technology and materials, skate wheels were better than ever and in the late 1950s through the 1960s outdoor roller skating took off.  This includes Jan Lord and "Timber" Kilborn, members of the Winnipeg Roller Skating Club, who did a Winnipeg to Emerson marathon in July 1956 (see above). A trio of university students did a U of M to Lockport trip the following spring.

Also in the 1960s you could outdoor roller skate at Wasagaming in Riding Mountain Park and indoors at Winnipeg Beach's old dance hall. Later in the decade community clubs experimented with new coatings that would allow roller skating and not ruin the finish of their gym floors.

Roller skating also began to get North American television attention. In the mid and late 1960s, it was occasionally included in the lineup of the American show "Wide World of Sports" which was simulcast in the Winnipeg market.

Roller Derby also took off in the late 1960s and early 1970s and drew big crowds in person and on television. People like Gwen "Skinny Minnie" Miller of the L.A. Thunderbirds and the Canadian All-Stars became a household name.

February 16, 1979, Winnipeg Free Press

Disco was also part of the resurgence of the popularity of roller skating in the 1970s which combined dance moves and skating.

Eaton's helped usher in the era to Winnipeg by hosting a series of demonstrations by Valerie Wiggins and David Gair of the Saints Roller Rink in Fort Garry in February 1979. They used it as a tie-in to fashion and music departments.

Bart Shwartz, manager of Saints, said regular roller disco dance nights might not become a regular thing as "you've got to be a darn good skater to do it" and there just weren't that many who could pull it off in the city. he did note that more and more of the music requested at his rink was from the genre. (A poll of the Winnipeg Roller rink by the Tribune found that 70 to 80 percent of the music played at regular skates in the Winnipeg roller rink was disco.)

Roller skating in the 1960s and 1970s firmly established itself as a recreation, sport and part of popular culture. Here are the venues that came and went in the 1970s to present day.


Winnipeg Roller Rink (September 1934 - June 2007)

The Manitoba, October, 17, 1968

The Winnipeg Roller Rink continued on after the departure of Syd Shaw in the mid-1960s. It offered skating six nights a week to keep up with demand.

Shaw's marketing strategy of targeting children and university students continued to pay off long after his tenure. In the late 1960s, special events at the rink were often mentioned in the Tribune's YouthBeat column as places to be seen.

By the late 1970s, the rink was owned by Bob Beach, (likely the same Bob Beach who owned Skinner's in Lockport from 1973 to 1979). He took over just as the sport's popularity peaked again in Winnipeg.

Despite competition from new suburban rinks, the Winnipeg Roller Rink initially fared well thanks to its appeal to university students and those from its golden era who continued to visit. In 1986, Beach and Peter Gamble established the Senior Roller Skating League whose Sunday morning skate featuring old-time music became a long-term fixture at the venue.

The fortunes of the rink waned along with the popularity of roller skating through the 1980s. Beach told a Free Press reporter in 1987 that due to sinking attendance, rising property taxes, and the cost of repairs, the rink had not had a break-even year since 1980. He felt that new forms of entertainment, from VCRs to computer games, kept kids on the couch rather than at the rink.

Andre Atkinson, who had working at the rink since 1974, bought the venue from Beach in 1990. Its name was changed to DJ's Roller City from 1991 to 1996, then to Galaxy Skateland.

The sound system was updated as was the decor. Some of the original seating areas around the rink were walled in to aid in heat retention. (Atkinson said that in the winter heating bills cold be as much as $5,000.)

The rink kept on going with a mix of new and old patrons attending regular skate sessions and special events like All Night Skates which stretched from 7 p.m to 7 a.m.. There would, however, be no mass resurgence of roller skating in the nineties or noughties to fill the coffers.

In 2006, Atkinson was ordered by city inspectors to make repairs to the building's sagging structure. He declined as the funds were not there to do it and put the building up for sale. The last skate was on Sunday, June 3, 2007.

The building was purchased by the University of Winnipeg and the site became part of the Richardson College for the Environment.

The venue was commemorated by a mural on the neighbouring North West Investment Building, which burned down in 2022, and some of the rink's vast maple floor was carefully removed and used as panelling at the college.

There's an excellent oral history project covering much of the Galaxy Skateland era at the U of W's Oral History Centre and a Winnipeg Roller Rink Facebook page where you can find out more about its history.


Saints Roller Rink (December 1977 - May 1999)

Saints on Regent. November 21, 1978, Winnipeg Tribune

Saints Roller Rink was a chain created by Minnesota ad executive Peter Boo in the mid-1970s. His children loved to roller skate but he found that most U.S. rinks they visited were old, shabby, "tough hangouts" located in downtown areas. He wanted to change that image and bring bright, newly-built venues that suburban parents would feel safe sending their children to.

Boo built six rinks in Minneapolis and one in Duluth before moving into Canada. In partnership with Canadian owners, Saints ended up in Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, and Fort Frances before entering the Winnipeg market. (At the time, new rinks were also underway at Brandon - which opened in March 1979 - St. Catherine's, and Edmonton.

November 10, 1979, Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg's first Saints opened in December 1977 at 171 Hamelin Street at Clarence Avenue in Fort Garry. It was followed by 1540 Regent Avenue W. in Transcona in November 1978. and 2401 McPhillips Street at Templeton Avenue in December 1978. The McPhillips Street location closed in 1981 and was replaced by 3584 Portage Avenue at Bedson Street in 1982.

A new-built Saints rink cost about $750,000 and included an 18,000 square foot skating floor, a deejay booth, and a concession stand. The decor was colourful and bright with bold graphics, ("the sort of decor a 14-year-old likes" Boo told the Tribune).

Admission to Saints was $3.50 per person  - 25 cents more than at the Winnipeg Roller Rink - and they had special ladies' nights and student hours with discounted fees.

As Saints was appealing to children and families, skating lessons were a big part of their programming as most patrons had never roller skated before. There were also daytime exercise classes for mothers where babysitting services were offered.

One by one, the Saints rinks disappeared until there was only one left.

Fern and Wayne Meyer bought the original Saints on Hamelin Street in 1981. When their lease came up for renewal in early 1999, it was not renewed. A final skate was held on Saturday, May 1, 1999, and an open house for visitors took place the following day.

Wheelies Family Roller Centre (September 1981 - June 2007)  (December 2007 - April 2018) (June 2019 - present)

September 10, 1981 Free Press

A few months after the closure of the McPhillips Avenue Saints, Wheelies Family Roller Centre came to fill the space. (They would also take over the Saints location in Brandon.)

Wheelies appears to have been a Canadian chain with several locations in Ontario and was expanding into Western Canada. Its formula was similar to Saints with a focus on family entertainment, though more emphasis seems to have been placed on skate sales and their in-house skate repair shop.

In April 2007, Gordon Gunn, who bought the business in 1997, announced that the building's owner had found a new tenant willing to pay much more for the space and the rink would have to close. He said the business was profitable and he was searching for a new home but it was difficult to find a building with around 20,000 square feet of pillar-free space.

The last skate at Wheelies on McPhillips was Sunday, June 10, 2007 - just a week after the last skate at the Winnipeg Roller Rink. Winnipeg was without a roller skating venue for the first time since 1934.

Wheelies on Logan, 2014, Google Street View

By the time 2007 ended, Gunn found his new location, though not completely pillar free, at 1010 Logan Avenue. Saints was advertising events at its new facility in late December 2007.

After a relatively quiet eleven years at this location, the rink was again forced to find a new home when the adjacent business took over the space. Yet another Wheelies last skate was held on April 30, 2018.

Source: www.wheeliesrollerrink.com

Not long before Wheelies 2.0 closed, the West Kildonan Curling Club at 210 Enniskillen in West Kildonan had shut its doors in September 2017 due to declining membership. It merged with the Elmwood Curling Club and put the building up for sale.

Gunn looked at the building and found that the space was even more suitable for roller skating due to its pillar-free ice area than the Logan Avenue facility. In April 2019, he announced that renovations were underway to have Wheelies 3.0 open by June 1.

Wheelies Roller Rink closed during the COVID pandemic but has since reopened and is Winnipeg's only roller skating venue.


CONCLUSION

The past 50 years have been the best and worst of times for roller skating in Winnipeg.

There was a single roller rink at the beginning of the 1970s and by the end there were five in operation at the same time. That's one more than in previous high points in early 1885 or the mid-1930s. The low point, of course, was June 2007 when the city's last two roller rinks closed within a week of each other and left the city without one for the first time in nearly 75 years.

Will roller skating rebound again? Some aspects of the sport have been making a comeback.

Roller Derby leagues have been popping up in various North American cities throughout the 2000s, including here in Winnipeg. There is still a hope by groups such as Team USA Roller Sports to have some disciplines become part of the Olympic Games, though they have never made it passed the "proposed new sports" stage.

The thought that these grassroots efforts will one day give roller skating the type of media and cultural prominence that it enjoyed in the 1970s is hard to imagine, (though skateboarding managed to make it happen.)

In markets like Winnipeg, roller skating's popularity in the 1970s and early 1980s had to do with thousands of kids taking up the activity. Could that happen again in today's age?

There has certainly been a move away from "free range" children's recreation in recent decades, such as allowing them to go off on a bike unsupervised for a couple of hours to play at a park. It seems that parents have been opting for more structured, heavily supervised activities where they can watch their kid throughout.

Would parents who now drive their kids to soccer games or swimming practice to watch them from the stands be willing to trade that in for sitting in the concession area of a roller rink to watch them go round and round for a couple of hours? It's hard to say.

Of course, the only way to know whether roller skating will ever rebound again is to make sure that the city's last roller rink stays afloat. if you get the chance, be sure to support them!


The nineteen indoor roller skating venues in Winnipeg from 1883 to 2022.
(***There is no evidence that this announced venue ever opened, so I am not including it.) 

- The Tabernacle - Notre Dame Avenue (ca. 1881? - 1882?)***
- Roller Skating Rink - Graham Avenue (May 1883 - December 1883)
- The Pavilion Roller Rink - Lombard Avenue (October 1884 - January 1885)
- Royal Roller Rink I - Market Avenue East (January 1885 - November 1885)
- Royal Roller Rink II - Main Street (November 1885 - ? 1887)
- Gold Seal Roller Rink (March 1885 - April 1885)
- Grand Roller Rink - Princess Street (March 1885 - December? 1886)
- River Park Roller Rink I – River Park (May 1895 - September 1895)
- Arlington Rink – Arlington at Portage (October 1906 - October 1908)
- Auditorium Rink (May 1907 - September 1907)
- Arena Rink – Bannatyne Avenue (June 1908 - August 1925 - seasonal)
- River Park Roller Rink II – River Park (June 1930 - September 1939)
- Winnipeg Roller Rink / DJ’s Roller City / Galaxy Skateland – Langside Street (September 1934 – June 2007)
- Civic Auditorium Roller Rink  - St. Mary Avenue (1938 - ?1952)
- Saints Roller Rink x 3 venues (December 1977 - May 1999)
- Wheelies Family Roller Centre x 3 locations (September 1981 - June 2007)  (December 2007 - April 2018) (June 2019 - present)