On Saturday afternoon, several dozen people turned out to the Beechgrove rink, located off Hwy. 148 just east of Quyon for a ceremony re-naming the community hub in honour of Gordie Mohr.
Mohr’s son Mike said his father was a dedicated volunteer who spent endless hours at the little rink that sits on property the family had donated.
“Dad always tried to help. We donated the land to build the rink and he was always here plowing, pushing snow,” he said. “He was always here, always supported it and always wanted to be around it.”
“Our father passed away in August, so we decided instead of donating money to something else, we’d donate it to the rink where he grew up and where he wanted to be all the time,” he added.
Generations of families have used the facility for broomball, hockey, or just hanging out at the rink shack to play cards. Among the attendees reminiscing about years gone by, Jill McBane, proudly sported her Beechgrove Rink Broomball Champs jacket from 1982.
After his brother Dave took down the tarp covering the new sign with a hockey stick, Mike thanked the assembled crowd.
“I’d like to thank everyone for coming, that’s awesome. Just a great turnout, a great day for the rink, and thank you very much,” he said.
Cathy Emmerson, who grew up not far from the rink, said much of the equipment was donated or salvaged by volunteers.
“The original boards, my uncle worked for the NCC at the Governor General’s residence and they were ripping down their rink, so he was able to get all the rink boards and they brought them up, that would have been ‘74ish,” she said. “So that was the original rink, we had no lights back then. It was literally a shack we had with an oil drum that was converted to a stove.”
Emmerson said she recalled people calling her home before they sent their children to the rink.
“My mom, her job was to answer the phone, because all of the people around would call to see if the lights were on at the rink and if there was smoke coming out of the chimney, because the kids weren’t allowed to come until the rink was up and open, with an adult possibly there. With an old oil barrel for a stove, they didn’t want us kids lighting it,” she recalled.
