"Waterloo rink plans shelved" was last week's Flash from the Past finale.

Blame the outside world. Sept. 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland. Sept. 3: Great Britain and France declare war on Germany. Sept. 4: Waterloo's rink commission recommends cancelling the project. Sept. 5: Waterloo council terminates it. Sept. 10: King George VI signs an order-in-council from Ottawa — Canada is at war with Germany.

Three years of hard work, planning and bickering was just days away from becoming a formal construction contract. A bylaw approved by voters in late 1938 had authorized a $50,000 debenture for a state-of-the-art skating rink/hockey arena. An additional $20,000 had been raised by subscription and donation.

Now the plans were shelved: $2,100 of tax money paid the architect and the subscription monies were returned to the donors.

The good news? The debenture bylaw approval had required a private bill in the Ontario legislature authorizing construction and operation. That bill was open-ended and after what everyone hoped would be a short war, the rink could proceed quickly.

Originally titled "Waterloo Civic Auditorium," it was, as we know, eventually built but with a new name: "Waterloo Memorial Arena" ... and an additional purpose.

In the meantime, for the war's duration, Waterloo's minor hockey teams — bantam, midget and juvenile — played outdoors at Alexandra and St. Louis schools and at the Togo Street ice surface called Siskin rink.

The intermediate team and Jr. B Siskins booked most home games into area rinks: Elmira, New Hamburg, Preston and, until 1942, Kitchener. Over the course of the war, the rink issue popped up periodically, usually someone proposing a new funding model but the uncertainty of wartime finances kept all these plans at the idea stage.

Three months after the war's final shots in August 1945, council gave quick first and second readings to a rink construction bylaw. Two days earlier, the Ontario Municipal Board had reiterated that the 1938 bylaw and subsequent provincial bill remained valid and the $50,000 debenture could be issued.

In early January, council gave third reading authorizing a contract with Preston's N. O. Hipel Company to construct the long-awaited rink.

Not all was smooth sailing! The location of the new rink just south of Waterloo Park's Silver Lake caused Reeve Herman Sturm to protest building it on faulty subsoil: The site had been the town dump.

Ald. Norman Ratz, arena commissioner J.R. Beaton and council candidate Arthur Holland were three others objecting on those grounds. Most members of council, convinced by positive subsoil test results, voted in favour.

On May 26, 1946, shovels began work. Over the next nine months, postwar shortages of building materials, carpenters and specialized equipment caused delays — even a nail shortfall slowed work for a day.

Costs outran estimates and the $50,000 was soon used in just erecting the building. Twice that amount was needed to properly equip the rink.

Feb. 15, 1947, was opening night. A special program attracted 2,400 people to Waterloo's first indoor hockey since 1921 when the previous natural ice rink at Regina and Erb had been torn down. On the card? Intermediate Waterloo Tigers hockey against Preston; skating races featuring Waterloo elementary schools; figure skating demonstrations and a stilt-skating comedian.

In the years since 1939, the rink project had also become a memorial project and the real star of the evening was a bronze plaque containing the names of 69 Waterloo citizens killed during the two world wars. It stood on an easel in one of the goal creases with an honour guard of Waterloo cadets.

Former mayor Albert Heer unveiled the plaque and read out the heroes' names. His voice had only a slight hitch as he reached the H's — his own son, Trooper Robert Heer, had been killed 23 months earlier serving with the Canadian Army in northern Europe.

Waterloo Memorial Arena served as well as it could. Sixteen years later, 1963, Herman Sturm's faulty subsoil predictions started coming true but remedial work kept the rink operating. Then, declaring the building structurally unsound, the Ministry of Labour ordered it closed in May 1987.

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With the roof and walls removed and replaced by an air-supported plastic dome, the arena hung on for another 14 years until demolition in spring 2001.

The 1993 Waterloo Recreation Complex was renamed in 2002 to include the word Memorial ... and that plaque now has an honoured place on WMRC's Memorial Wall.