Old Ex was also home to football and hockey

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/08/2021 (1884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Softball at the Old Exhibition Grounds and Charlie Krupp Memorial Stadium was featured in a previous Memories of Sport column. This week the Old Ex history continues with stories about football and hockey and the early days when large exhibitions were held in the city’s North End.
While the Old Ex was primarily  place for summer sports and activities, winter sports were added during the winter of 1963-64.

Except for the Winnipeg Arena, the city did not have an indoor hockey rink once the Olympic on Church Avenue was converted to curling in the early 1960s. Minor hockey was played outside at community clubs so players and fans were pleased when the sity announced that the Old Exhibition indoor rink and one in River Heights called Grant Park-Nathaniel would be opened.

The Old Ex rink was located at the east end of the grounds and teams from area clubs such as CUAC, CPAC and Northwood were thrilled when they were assigned games inside. Teams from other areas of the city did not find the rink as welcoming for many, many year. It was closed in March 2015.
Old Ex became home to a Canadian champion football team when the Winnipeg Hawkeyes opened a clubhouse north of Charlie Krupp Stadium in 1969.

The Hawkeyes led by head coach Mike Debroni had won the Little Grey Cup, emblematic of the Canadian juvenile championship the previous fall, by beating Lachine Lakers 60-7 at Winnipeg Stadium. Bud Harden was the quarterback and Jim Ballance scored four touchdowns and future Blue Bomber Gord Paterson nabbed two for the home team. Hawkeyes continued to dominate at the national level, winning three more Little Grey Cups in 1969, 1971 and 1972.

In the 1970 season, the Hawkeyes also fielded the organization’s first junior team, replacing Weston Wildcats in the Manitoba/Saskatchewan League. The field next to the clubhouse was used for practices by the Hawkeyes teams and once the softball season ended at Krupp, some of outfield lights were turned north to provide better lighting for evening practices.  

The junior team folded in 1996 and the facility became home to the North Winnipeg Nomads in 1997.

The deteriorating Krupp Stadium was doomed after the John Blumberg Softball Complex opened in Headingley with four lighted diamonds and men’s fast-pitch softball was on its last legs within the city.

Once the softball facility was torn down, the Nomads were able to expand their practice area.

Lee McDonald responded to the first Old Ex column with his memories. His father Bob was a senioroperator at the rink for many years and Lee and his brother Todd worked at the rink and the grounds. Todd was a linebacker for the Hawkeyes and Lee played for the North Winnipeg Satellites junior B team that played its first season at Old Ex. Their grandfather enlisted for the First World War at the Old Ex grounds.  

“Our family literally lived at the Old Ex arena/Hawkeyes clubhouse for many, many years,” he said.

According to Lee, no one wanted to come to play the North End Flyers intermediate team that called Old Ex rink home.

“The arena had a charm that only the North End players would know about,” he wrote.  “(It was) only 185 feet in length, which meant that many visiting defencemen were doomed when the puck was dumped slowly into the corner.”

Readers may not know that the Old Ex grounds can be traced back to the 1890s. In 1900, what was described as “Winnipeg’s Great Fair” was held there. In the summer of 1911, the large grandstand burned down, but was rebuilt by 1913 when a record 35,000 people attended the Canadian Industrial Exhibition on July 15. The grounds were also used for baseball, lacrosse, soccer, track and field  and stampedes in the early years.