BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!

Subject: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: 3refs
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 09:39 AM

Doors to the Orillia Community Centre locked!

I titled this thread that way because I honestly think it's going to take divine intervention to save the "old barn" this time! So, I guess this is more of an obituary!

I know the place wasn't built with the expertize or the materials of the pyramids. It was built with love and dedication by a bunch of sports loving volunteers in 1950. I have a huge picture of an uncle(lacrosse playing "Hurricane" Hank)pouring the last wheel barrow of finishing cement at centre ice. I have several more of another uncle, who managed the place until his death in 1970, escorting many Canadian celebrities of the 50's and 60's into the ballroom where they would entertain the "mucky-mucks" of "Mariposa"! My mother and aunt ran the concession stands until the 80's. We have won more National Championships in that barn than a town(we're a city now)of our population deserve. I've always said that the way the rest of the province treats us, if Thunder Bay is the head and Windsor is the feet, they treat us like we're the arsehole of Ontario!(Orillia has a rich history and has been home to many important events in Canada's past. For example, Orillia introduced Daylight Savings Time to North America and Orillia had the very first hydroelectric transmission plant. From the shores of Orillia, one can go anywhere in the world. The Trent Severn Waterway connects Lake Couchiching through three locks and also to the only marine railway in North America. From there it's Georgian Bay to Lake Huron and through the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence Seaway and to the Atlantic. From Lake Simcoe, you can get to Lake Ontario and then to the waterways of the world)Back in the 70's we would have "Beer Fests", on the arena floor, that would benefit local sports associations or charities. They quickly went the way of the Dodo though, as the local police station couldn't hold all those who got arrested. The bands that played there are too many to mention, but they ranged from Jeff Healy to Don Messer and of course hometown troubadour Gordon Lightfoot.
They have put the locks on the doors and now we have hundreds of kids, and adults too, that have lost not just a place to play hockey and lacrosse. They are losing a building that's full of memories.

I've laughed, cried, danced, fought, played, coached, refereed, got arrested and I even did "the horizontal mambo" in the old place on more than one occasion. I will miss the old girl! R.I.P.

R.W.R.

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: maeve
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 09:50 AM

Sorry to hear this, 3refs. Old buildings die hard. Are there plans to help raise the phoenix from the figurative ashes of the Orillia Community Centre? A different building? A new building eventually?

I forgive Orillia for introducing DST, by the way.

Best wishes,

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: 3refs
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 09:59 AM

Thanks!
Just mentioning the $60,000,000 replacement in this town could get you a black eye.
Thanks all the same!

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: 3refs
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 10:58 AM

As a sidebar.....if you build it, they will come!!!!!


Freakin tree huggers!

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Bee
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 02:37 PM

I tried but failed to find an online version of Walt Wingfield (Dan Needles) describing the attempt to save the local lions' Club Hall for you. Seems apropos, if you ever get to see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 03:12 PM

Holy FLIP, eh? Unbelievable! We don't need prayers, we need ACTION!!! I think we should get together all the people who are really flippin' upset about this and gather at one of the local watering holes downtown, get drunk, and get really flippin' MAD about this proposed desecration of our civic heritage...then march in a raging mob straight to City Hall, bearing torches and baseball bats...and deliver a flippin' ULTIMATUM to City Council!

The Arena must stay open or we will torch City Hall and show no mercy for those miscreants who would dare destroy our Arena!

The Mayor and Council will tremble and turn pale when they hear the tumbrils rumbling down Colbourne... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 05:57 PM

"if you build it, they will come!!!!!"

"and I even did "the horizontal mambo" in the old place on more than one occasion."


Sounds like at least one person did!

Seriously, it's a shame when a new centre is built at extortionate prices when there was an old and venerated facility perfectly adequate to the needs and could be restored and refurbished at a fraction of the price.

And as for the first adage 'if you build it, they will come'.... I give you The Millennium Dome, Greenwich, London. They built it. No-one went. It is so far in debt that they are barely even making the interest payments.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 06:03 PM

3refs....I bet you have not done the horizontal mambo on the roof of the Orillia Opera House, though, have you? ;-) And how about on the lawn in front of the Champlaine Monument?

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: 3refs
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 08:54 PM

Little Hawk
I would like to exercise my right to keep my big mouth shut when it comes to anything regarding The Opera House. I was living in Vancouver when that palace(respectfully speaking)made national news once again with the ongoings that took place and the police filming it from the duct work in the ceiling. No comment!!!
As for Sam! It's a secret between me and him! I'm pretty sure the First Nations folk will not try to destroy his legacy. They have removed it forever from their oral history.(mine we won't discuss)It's the Jesuits that concern me most. I'm really freakin sure they were not impressed with some of what they surely witnessed....from several different angles!

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 09:14 PM

Ha! I wasn't refer to that Opera House stuff...

Anyway, you are wise to remain silent on such matters as "oral history". Specially in Orillia, the town that never stops talking!

But whaddya think about my idea for a torchlit march on City Hall?

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: 3refs
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 09:24 PM

We are three big boys in this house! There's nothing I'd like more! There are some private citizens we could drop in and also say hello to! Of course it would be B.Y.O.B(bring your own bat)

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 09:26 PM

Good stuff. I knew I could count on you, man. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: 3refs
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 09:09 AM

Tacoma Engineers, have suggested that the Community Centre can be fixed and used for another 4-5 years at a cost of $717,000. I'll go for that, provided that they (city council) get their hammers and chisels out and carve it into stone, that they really will get started on a twin pad facility immediately. I don't care where! Then sell off the B.O. Arena and eventually the property the O.C.C. is on and build the Murf where the footprint is now, which will take 3-4 years to complete anyways.
Today at City Hall, there is going to be a meeting with the "user groups", prior to the regular council meeting tonight, to see what can be agreed upon. I see this as being just another "Yell-fest", with most councilors being concerned about their own public perception and not wanting to offend their particular constituents, as opposed to doing what's best for the entire city.
It all goes back to that damn book "Sunshine Sketches Of A Little Town". Some townsfolk are still pissed at each others families after all these years and if "so and so" is for it, another "so and so" is against it! There are still no really bad characters in "Mariposa"! There are the blowhards, the cunning politicians, the self-interested businessmen and the usual run of ne'er-do-wells you'll find anywhere. But they're all part of the same human comedy(tragedy), that in reality, is Orillia!

God save us from ourselves!

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Beer
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 08:53 PM

So what has taken place since January 15th 3refs?
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 05:48 PM

"Holy FLIP, eh? Unbelievable! We don't need prayers, we need ACTION!!! I think we should get together all the people who are really flippin' upset about this and gather at one of the local watering holes downtown, get drunk, and get really flippin' MAD about this proposed desecration of our civic heritage...then march in a raging mob straight to City Hall, bearing torches and baseball bats...and deliver a flippin' ULTIMATUM to City Council!Little Hawk

Ye gods! Shane has taken over. I was afraid of this.

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: 3refs
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 07:08 AM

It's kind of hard to describe!
They basically built a ribcage inside the old barn, with 26 columns and 13 beams. The columns start at the second row of seats from the glass and go up on an angle to meet the old roof truss which are now supported by the beams. Can we say "overkill". At one time this arena could hold 3500 people with excellent sight line from anywhere. Now, maybe a couple of hundred will have unobstructed views, and a total copacity of maybe 1000.
They've started a new twin-pad arena outside of the city where they are building a new university. It's to be completed in the fall of 2010. So much for our new $50 million rec complex that would have been in the middle of town. To quote Reggie Hammond: "I've never seen so many backwards ass, country fucks in my life".

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: Beer
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 07:19 AM

Thanks 3refs. I like Reggie's quote as well.
Adrien

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: bobad
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 07:50 AM

"I've never seen so many backwards ass, country fucks in my life".

You haven't been to my little corner of smalltown Ontario.

Subject: RE: BS: Prayers for our Arena needed!
From: 3refs
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 08:20 AM

"I've been everywhere man, I've been everywhere!