| Jul 20, 2016


Reflections on 40 years of the NFCA

Jim Stinson's first involvement in the North Frontenac Community Arena (he has trouble using the new Frontenac Community Arena moniker) was as a fund-raising volunteer in 1974 or 1975.

“I was assigned Desert Lake Road because that is where I live. I went door to door asking for money,” he said when interviewed at the arena this week.

He recalls that the idea of building an arena in Frontenac County had been kicked around since the mid 1960s but there were always obstacles in the way.

There was talk in the early '70s between Hinchinbrooke, Oso, Olden and Bedford townships.

According to Dave Hansen, who was serving on Hinchinbrooke Council at the time, the townships went together to Frontenac County for funding support.

“We were told that if we agreed on a site and invested $100, they would put up the rest of the money. They were convinced we would never agree on a site, but we did agree on the Parham fair grounds as a site. When we went back, they said it turned out it was illegal for them to make the funding promise, so they backed out,” said Hansen, when contacted at his home on Tuesday.

According to Jim Stinson and Dave Hansen, there was also talk between Loughborough and Portland Townships about building an arena but they couldn't agree about locating it in Harrowsmith or Sydenham.

The logjam was broken when Portland came to the northern group after Grant Piercy offered them a piece of land on the border between Portland and Hinchinbrooke. Portland also committed to funding 41% of the operating costs, and that was that.

Frontenac County offered up $100,000 ($20,000 for each township involved) and $25,000 came from the Lions Club. Wintario was offering up $2 for each dollar raised through fund raising. That, in addition to the already strong support for the project, kicked off a highly successful fund-raising drive. Between door-to-door canvassing, dinners, draws and corporate donations, $80,000 was raised, of which over $1,600 came from school children. In the end, only $14,000 of the $492,000 budget came from local taxation

Although the arena is not located within the boundaries of any existing hamlet, it has the advantage of being located within a reasonably short drive from Arden, Sharbot Lake, Parham, Verona, Harrowsmith and Sydenham.

Once the arena was built, it needed a manager. At that time Jim Stinson, like so many others from the region, commuted each day to a job at Alcan in Kingston. One day while sharing a ride to work, someone said he should consider applying for the job as arena manager. Since he had refrigeration and electrical training, he was a prime candidate for the arena manager's job, which at the beginning was only about maintaining the building, making the ice, keeping all the equipment running, etc.

“I knew how to turn on the compressors, but what I didn't know was how to make ice, and an arena needs ice,” he recalls.

The ice-maker at the Cataraqui arena came up and showed him how to make ice by flooding the rink in stages and slowly building up the surface, and in the fall of 1976, the North Frontenac Arena opened with a fresh sheet of ice.

North Frontenac Minor Hockey started up right away, with Dick Steel as the driving force, with both girls and boys playing. Over 300 kids played hockey in that first year. At the same time Faye Steel started up a Figure Skating club, which lasted over 20 years.

In the 1980s, there was a curling club at the arena for several years. The Frontenac Flyers, a Junior C team that competed in the Empire B League with teams from Amherstview, Napanee, Picton, Madoc and Campbelford, ran for almost 20 years before folding about ten years ago

But it has been recreational hockey that has been the mainstay of the arena's success, and it remains busy seven days a week during the season with a men's league, an Over 30 league and boys' and girls' hockey leagues. Last year over 350 kids were enrolled in hockey at what is now known as the Frontenac Community Arena.

Ten years ago, the arena was upgraded thanks to a fund-raising campaign known as Project End Zone, and more improvements are planned, including the current campaign to pay for heaters for the stands. The campaign has a $20,000 goal and now sits at $13,000.

The arena will be marking its 40th anniversary this season, starting with a gala dinner and dance on August 6 (see the ad on page 12) and continuing into the coming season.

We will have more details about the dance in next week's edition of the Frontenac News. For more information, go to Frontenacarena.com

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