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Ontario History

Architecture on Ice: A History of the Hockey Arena by Howard Shubert Jennifer Conway

Volume 110, Number 1, Spring 2018

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1044331ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1044331ar

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Publisher(s) The Historical Society

ISSN 0030-2953 (print) 2371-4654 (digital)

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Cite this review Conway, J. (2018). Review of [Architecture on Ice: A History of the Hockey Arena by Howard Shubert]. Ontario History, 110(1), 116–117. https://doi.org/10.7202/1044331ar

Copyright © The Ontario Historical Society, 2018 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/

This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 116 ONTARIO HISTORY

Architecture on Ice A History of the Hockey Arena By Howard Shubert

Montreal, uebec: McGill-ueen’s University Press, 2016. 328 pages. $49.95 hardcover ISBN: 978- 0773548138 (http://www.mqup.ca/)

espite the longstanding status of ality, which in turn informs the shape of Dhockey as “Canada’s game” and all its the structure. Is there, asks Shubert, such a attendant history, little attention has been thing as the Ur-arena? paid to the buildings necessary to hockey Using a collection of well-curated and its evolution. From repurposed barns photographs, prints, paintings, and plans, and trolley sheds to the opulent multi- Shubert traces the evolution of the hockey purpose arenas of today, author Howard arena from its most humble beginnings in Shubert points out arenas and rinks are barns where it was designed as a pleasure considered culturally important, but not skating attraction rst and hockey as an architecturally important. ere is no sig- a erthought. A careful and clear line is nicant overarching architectural theme drawn from “standing around the edge of in their history. ere are no famous ar- the ice” to the various iterations of bleach- chitects at work, no common theme in the ers and then multi-tiered seating and - edice and facade, only in their function- nally, suites and skyboxes. e book even wades briey into the issues of social ten- sion and separation that have accompanied the deliberate design of self-contained club and suite-level seating with their own res- taurants, bars, entrances and exits away from the average fan. (It should be noted here that community arenas are excluded from Shubert’s study.) Without focusing entirely on NHL arenas or even Canadian arenas, and with- out sentimentality, Shubert examines the thought process behind the arena and explores how the specic needs of a team inform the arena design while balanc- ing the needs of the building’s owner to make money year-round. e Forum’s evolution from arena to cathedral (both in secular terms and as the location of superstar Howie Morenz’s funeral) to repurposed has-been is included, as is the Maple Leaf Gardens’ role in implementing

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the press box in arena design. e author Another minor issue is that in the at- also observes that Maple Leaf Gardens was tempt to place the arenas in historical con- one of the earliest attempts at making the text, Shubert struggles at times with the so- building more than an arena, with its plans cio-political tensions at play, particularly in originally calling for shops integrated into uebec. ere is also a hesitation to delve the design, which was placed on a street much into the context of who historically slated for retail development, a common attended games. e types of crowds who theme in arena planning today. attended games informed the seating struc- Written in an engaging style, it is ture and the future demand, as well as are- not merely a timeline of architectural na location and transportation options and changes, costs, building materials, and deserves more attention than it was given. future predictions; Shubert also engages e casual fan or even the avid fan the history of hockey, the forces driving looking for a book of NHL building pho- the sport indoors, to articial ice, to the tos and tidbits will be disappointed, though necessity of creating multipurpose are- there are certainly many interesting tidbits nas. It wanders a little far before making and photographs to be had. e reader its at times, especially when it sud- does not need a degree in architecture to denly spends several pages devoted to the read Architecture on Ice, nor do they need Astrodome before drawing a comparison any deep historical background, though a point with hockey arena architecture. smattering of specic architectural refer- Shubert also tried to make an argument ences may be puzzling. All in all, Architec- for hockey to return to a vintage architec- ture on Ice is an interesting examination of tural style, using a recent baseball trend the past and future of the hockey arena. (i.e. Camden Yards in Baltimore) which is not particularly feasible though cer- Jennifer Conway tainly emotionally agreeable. Hockey Historian

Making a Global City How One Toronto School Embraced Diversity By Robert Vipond

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. 249 pages. $34.95 hardcover ISBN 978-1-4426-3195-3 (www.utppublishing.com)

obert Vipond’s book, Making a Glo- inner city elementary school community Rbal City: How One Toronto School in Toronto, from 1920 to 1990. e book Embraced Diversity makes a strong con- chronicles the shi ing demographics of tribution to the study of immigration and Clinton Street Public School, established state citizenship. A professor of Political in 1888, as a microhistory of Toronto’s Science, Vipond presents a history written immigration history to trace the broader with a strong political lens that explores political and social changes taking place in the impact of waves of immigration on one Canada. Vipond organizes the school his-

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