Hockey Hothouse: Part 1

(1947) The NHL’s studded with stars from Winnipeg’s Olympic Rink where players get frostbite and the cash intake is sometimes nil.

Here is a two-part story that Herb Manning wrote in 1947 for MacLean’s Magazine about the historic Olympic Rink in Winnipeg. Stay tuned next week for the second part of the story.

In Winnipeg the name of Frank Selke is not a household phrase as it may be in Montreal or Toronto. But to have him disappear in broad daylight on the main street, as he did one morning not long ago, nevertheless was worthy of passing notice.

Selke, the boss of Montreal Canadiens, had arrived in the morning. An hour later he still hadn’t checked in at his hotel. To the handful of sports writers assigned to record the purpose of his visit, the case became a deepening mystery. How could a National Hockey League magnate, coming into town without a guide, succeed in losing or hiding himself so completely in such a short time?

Selke began to answer the question himself when he stepped out of a taxicab in North Winnipeg two miles from the scene of the unsolicited search. Like dozens of professional hockey managers, coaches and scouts before him, Selke had come to pay his respects in the Olympic rink, a large, square, steelgirded, red brick building that stands in the heart of a densely populated residential district as a monumental contradiction to the credo that it’s easier to become rich than it is to become famous.