River Heights Community Centre History

The River Heights Community Centre was officially founded on February 4th, 1946 and its first club house was no more than a small hockey shack that was donated to the club by the River Heights Lawn Bowling Club.

The executive of the RRCC collected $8,631.00 from the citizens of River Heights during 1947 and this together with a grant from the City of Winnipeg of about $10,500 paid a contractor $19,200 to construct a club house in 1948. The size of this first club house was such that it would have fit into the auditorium of the current facility.

In the early 1960’s, the Community Centre’s activity had grown from the initial club house to two converted wooden box cars and a small wood frame building used as hockey dressing rooms. The City Health Department had condemned the old club house and as a result money for a new club house for River Heights was included in a City of Winnipeg money by-law that met formal approval by City voters.

During the winter of 1961-1962, the old club house was taken down and a new one constructed, using $75,000 from the City of Winnipeg and $15,000 from the citizens of River Heights. While construction was underway the Centre continued to exist using the two wooden box cars as dressing rooms and through the generous donation of space from Dixon’s Pharmacy operated an office and ran a fund drive out of the basement of this drug store.

With the new club house underway, following passage of the 1961 money by-law, an interested group of River Heights citizens, had an idea that it would be nice if the Community Centre constructed an indoor arena. They knew that funds to pay for such a project would not come from the City of Winnipeg, but believed that sufficient funds could be obtained through a volunteer drive, form the citizens of the area.

A sample campaign convinced them that they were right and in the fall of 1962, they hired a professional fund raiser by the name of Al White to organize and direct a fund drive. Using this man and countless volunteers, the centre raised case and pledge donations sufficient to start construction of an indoor arena costing $97,229. The contract was let in December of 1963.

Unfortunately the banks would not loan the Community Centre any money to finance the construction until all the pledges were paid off, as the building was to be constructed on City owned funds. So a group of concerned volunteers came forth and signed personal notes at the bank, ranging from $1,000 to $16, 000 each for a total of $41, 000.

Following the construction of the new arena in 1964, an artificial ice plant was installed in 1965 at a cost of $40,000, a floor in the arena in 1967 at a cost of $12,000 and an up-dated artificial ice plant, Zamboni ice machine, and associated buildings, in 1975 at a cost of $90,000. All of the improvements were paid for by the citizens of River Heights.In addition, the cost of operation of the arena including staff is paid directly by the RHCC, not the City of Winnipeg.

In 1974, the Community explored the prospect of constructing a joint venture curling adjacent to the existing ice area, however after many months of discussion and public meetings the idea was voted down. The hope had been that the added facility would have been a great benefit to the community, and the added revenue helped to pay our ever increasing expenses.

Unfortunately, volunteer support has fallen off over the past few years, and the executive was faced with a decision of either turning the entire facility over to the City of Winnipeg who would then run it on the same basis as all other city owned arenas (Shared by all the community centers’) or the institution of a user fee. The user fee basis was adopted and this has enabled the centre to continue to operate the facilities for the people of River Heights, the people who paid for them in the first place.

The dressing rooms, offices and viewing area adjacent to the ice surface were provided by the City of Winnipeg as an addition to the Community Centre in the City budget of 1978 at a cost of around $90,000. The plexi glass around the hockey rink and the spectator heating was installed in 1980 by the Community Centre for $30,000 as part of its program to continue to improve the arena and make the centre the best in the city, and primarily for the use of the citizens of River Heights.