Remembering together: The Canadian Way The ice rink

Soldiers - especially in professional armies - are generally keen on sport. But for the Canadians, physical training was much more than military drill: team sports brought joy and community and were also an expression of cultural and national identity. In Germany, however, soccer and handball dominated, and there were no opportunities for winter sports in Lahr.
As early as 1967, the Canadian Air Force Headquarters applied for permission to build an ice hockey rink in Lahr. However, after months of searching, no suitable building site was found in the town. In the end, the only option was to expand the barracks site - curiously enough, with the approval of the German Armed Forces, who, as the owner, stipulated that the hall had to be able to be converted into a truck workshop after the Canadians had left.
Construction work began on August 1, 1968, and the topping-out ceremony was celebrated on August 28. The hall was completed in November 1968 and officially opened on December 15, 1968.

The arena was named "Arrowhead Arena " after the arrowhead symbol of the 1st Air Force Wing, which was stationed at the Lahr airfield when it opened in 1968. It was mainly used by the Canadian armed forces, but the Canadians opened their arena to the German population early on: on January 12, 1969, the first public skating event for German ice skaters was possible.
Top athletes also used the arena: Canadian athletes trained there on the way to the 1970 Ice Skating World Championships. In addition to ice hockey, there was a curling club and several unit teams, which also competed against teams from the Söllingen garrison. Starting in 1971, the Canadian Army hosted the German Curling Championship at the Arrowhead Arena three years in a row.

A German ice hockey club, the EHC Lahr, was also founded, but did not last long.
Nevertheless, the popularity was so great that in 1970, with the expansion of the garrison, a second arena was built on the airfield: the "Maple Leaf Arena".

The last event at the Arrowhead Arena took place in March 1993. After the base closed, the arena quickly fell into disrepair. Vandalism and wild camping turned it into a classic "lost place". Plans to reopen it fell through as no investors were found for the costly operation, nor was an association available to run it on a permanent basis. In 2005, the hall finally burned down - the cause was never clearly established, but arson is considered likely.

I played field hockey and broomball. We had special shoes so we could run on the ice. Of course, we also played field hockey in the barracks. We weren't allowed to fight. It's a very physical game. There are lots of 'body checks' - my shoulder got cracked once. We also had competitions - and of course we won. We invited other Americans and had special competitions. In soccer, we traveled around Germany and played against other Germans. I was too small to play volleyball, but I tried it out. It hurts me so much that the ice rink couldn't be preserved.

I went ice skating several times a month. We were always allowed to skate in a circle, it was very orderly - someone from the Canadians, probably from the ice hockey team, always made sure of that. We always skated in one direction and had to change direction when the whistle blew. That made it impossible for us to go in the wrong direction.

We had only been on site for a few moments when the fire suddenly spread throughout the building. An orderly fire-fighting attack was out of the question at that moment. Shortly afterwards, the entire structure collapsed. We were kept busy with extinguishing the fire for a long time afterwards. Fortunately, the initial concern that there might still have been people in the hall was not confirmed.

In addition to fighting the fire, we immediately had to use our measuring equipment to check for possible hazardous substances in the air. The hall's refrigeration system was using ammonia as a coolant and the system had not been completely drained. We were able to detect ammonia in Oststadt, but the measured values were harmless.

Nevertheless, this dispersion data was very important for planning the next day. The unusually rapid progression of the fire was due to the construction of the hall. The construction consisted of very light and tightly fitted wooden elements, which can ignite "in one go" when it is very hot. This also explains why the building collapsed so quickly. The outer shell was made of fiber cement panels - and it was precisely these that caused us major problems later on.

The next day, the construction manager called me to the heart center. There were numerous fragments of these panels lying on the grounds and roof surfaces. As it turned out, it was asbestos-containing material that had been blown over a wide area by the strong thermals during the fire. Thanks to our measurement data from the previous day, we were quickly able to narrow down where further fragments must have fallen. The pieces were collected and secured during the course of the day. We had large quantities of these fragmented slabs at the actual site. If the material had dried, we would have had to reckon with a large release of asbestos fibers. That's why the Lahr fire department kept the area constantly damp and watered it for weeks. The operation could only be finally concluded once the fire material had been completely removed.