75 years of Orioles Community Club

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/03/2026 (193 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At this time 75 years ago, residents of the West End were settling into their newest recreation facility, the Orioles Community Club (now known as the Valour Community Centre – Orioles Site).

Its roots date back to the 1930s, before the city had a recreation department and when sports leagues were dominated by teams from private athletic clubs.

One club that emerged late in the decade was the West End Orioles Athletic Association, which fielded lacrosse and hockey teams in several city leagues. It was based at Canada Bread Field, a greenspace next to the company’s bakery on Burnell Street.

The West End Orioles soon flourished. By 1943, its teams were winning city and provincial championships. Its juvenile hockey team won the Western Canadian championship in 1945.

At the peak of its success, the club was informed that the 1947-48 season would be its last, as the field was sold to the Valour Road Legion for a hall and curling club.

Orioles was without a home, but the city offered a lifeline. In 1946, the City of Winnipeg created a recreation department under Charles Barbour, who wanted to establish a city-wide network of city-funded but community-run community clubs. He began by reaching out to existing clubs to see if they would operate such a facility in their area.

For Orioles, it meant that its name would live on, but the athletic association would have to disband and the new community club would have to provide a variety of sports and other programming for the entire neighbourhood.

In May 1949, the club presented the city with its plan to transition the West End Orioles Athletic Association into the Orioles West End Community Club. (“West End” was dropped from the name in 1951.)

A surplus military building was purchased and the club moved to its new home, just a block north of Canada Bread Field. Mayor Garnet Coulter cut the ribbon to officially open the facility on Feb. 2, 1951.

From the start, Orioles offered programs that would be part of its lineup for decades to come. Sports included hockey, baseball, softball, basketball, and lacrosse. For kids, there were dance classes and craft nights. For seniors, there was a weekly activity drop-in. The Orioles Winter Carnival began in 1951 and was a fixture through to the early 1990s.

In the late 1950s, marching band and majorette programs were introduced. Both lasted into the late 1980s, and its teams competed in city and regional championships as far away as North Dakota.

Many community clubs struggled in the 1990s due to a combination of smaller family sizes, fewer community volunteers, and funding shortages.

The city’s 2004 Public Use Facilities Report recommended merging community clubs in several areas of the city, including the West End. Amalgamation talks soon began involving the Isaac Brock, Clifton, and Orioles community clubs.

An agreement was finalized in December 2006 that created the Valour Community Centre, based at the Isaac Brock site, with Orioles and Clifton as its satellite sites.