It is the end of an era as Coachlite Roller Gardens, Durham’s last roller rink, has closed its doors.

The last skate, to the tune of upbeat dance music and under colourful flashing lights, was on Wednesday at the downtown Oshawa business at 88 King St. W.

Owner Heino Themann, 75, opened Coachlite Roller Gardens in 2003, and the building served as a roller rink the 1970s before becoming a bingo hall for a time.

“My wife and I, we’d been in competitive skating and I’d been in competitive skating since 1960.”

He said he decided to close the business and sell the building, because he wants to do other things like travelling.

With the building transferred to new owners at the end of August, this will be a second retirement for him.

“I was actually retired before this, I retired when I was 52 from Nortel,” he said.

Over the years, Coachlite has proven popular for people of all ages — from families with young kids to seniors.

“I enjoyed the people, made a lot of friends here,” said Themann. “I have a lot of regulars who come all the time and it’s a very social thing. We have in the mornings we have seniors … and the average age is probably mid-80s. The oldest skater we have right now, she’s 93 and she comes every week.”

Themann said people were sad about the closure, but understood that it was time for him to do something different.

He said his favourite moments included visits from Breakfast Television, which filmed live from Coachlite about three times.

Jessica Hoskin worked at Coachlite for 13 years until about a year ago.

“I don’t know if it’s hit me yet, I drove past it last night and cried,” she said during the last skate.

She said her favourite memories were about the people.

“We had regulars that would come in every week, multiple times a week,” said Hoskin. “The midnight coffees, just hanging out and talking to people and then realizing we closed three hours ago. It’s gonna be a sad day.”

Oshawa’s Cindy Michaud — known as ‘Minnie Gun’ in the roller derby world — was among a large contingent from Durham Region Roller Derby who came out to skate on Wednesday night. She started her roller derby career at Coachlite about 10 years ago when roller derby teams would practice at Coachlite.

“It was really hard to find a practice space, so this has kind of become home,” said Michaud, adding that Durham Region Roller Derby is now based in the Children’s Arena in Oshawa.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

She said she was sad to see the closure.

“It’s tough, we’re going to be crying by the end of tonight, for sure,” she said.

“It’s really sad,” added Sarah King of Whitby, whose derby name is ‘Cutsie Bootsie.’ “It’s where we all met. As a club we were here two to three nights a week, a lot of broken ankles here.”