Josh Matlow (Ward 22) has invited residents to a skating party to celebrate the completion of the newly finished Hodgson Senior Public School outdoor ice rink. The gathering will take place Sunday, December 14 between noon and 2 p.m. behind the school at 282 Davisville Avenue. Below are some pictures of the year-long work at this venerable outdoor rink during its resurrection. The old rink was built in 1980. Both the old and the new rinks mark Hodgson as one of only a few open-air artificial rinks in the city. It would be a worthy local task to record the history of hockey and pleasure-skating at the Hodgson rink. The school itself was built in 1915. The old rink had suffered many break-downs and engineers were worried that an ammonia leak might poison kids or others. There was a further delay in re-building the rink when the City was unable to get the school board (TDSB) to agree to a lease for public use that would make the cost of the work worthwhile. Finally, a ten year agreement was reached. The South Bayview Bulldog is indebted to Twitter picture poster Matthew Pelligrino, who appears to have had a personal role in the work seen below and called The Big Pour. Beneath it are photos supplied by CIMCO refrigeration, which installed the mean-looking blue refrigeration unit that keeps the ice in diamond-like condition.
