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"Where Hockey Got Its Start" Think the oldest continuously operating indoor ice rink in the world is in Canada? Think again. That title belongs to Michigan’s Calumet Colosseum, which dates back to 1913. (Matthews Arena in Boston was erected earlier, but a 1918 fire caused damage extensive enough that the building wasn’t reopened until 1920.) The Calumet Storage Company was responsible for building the Colosseum, a colossus of a rink with seating for 4,000 and a broad, arched roof supported by eight enormous steel spans. In the early years, lighted letters eight feet tall spelled out COLOSSEUM along the top of the roofline. In 1942, the state of Michigan bought the Colosseum to replace a National Guard armory that had burned across the street; it then became known as the Calumet Armory. Despite its military moniker, it was also home to the hottest game in town: Calumet’s semiprofessional senior team, known at the time as the Radars. “These guys grew up in the Depression and played hockey all day long,” said Bob Erkkila, a Calumet native. “A lot of them played professionally out east and came back here to finish up their careers. It was a real good brand of hockey—fun to watch and very competitive.” When the National Guard built a new armory in 2005, the Calumet Hockey Association and Calumet Township took over care of the building and restored its name. Houghton’s James R. Dee Stadium has a distinguished hockey pedigree, too. It stands on the site of the Amphidrome, which was built in 1902 but burned down in January 1927. The community of Houghton sold shares to rebuild the rink in time for the next hockey season. According to hockey historian Connie Julien, keeper of the Copper Country Hockey History website (www. cchockeyhistory.org), even the rebuilt “Dee” ranks among the three or four oldest operational rinks in the world. In its early years, Dee Stadium held 2,500 people in steep bleachers that stuffed 10 rows of seating into a space 20 feet deep, and put fans virtually on top of the action. As a site for International Hockey League games, it would have been a wild scene, packed with people, smoke, and alcohol, said Michigan Technological University Professor Bill Sproule, who teaches a hockey history course. It was no less wild when MTU owned the building and played hockey there from 1943 to 1972. The university renamed the building in honor of Dee and won two NCAA championships with the rink as its home ice. When MTU built the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena in 1972, it sold Dee Stadium back to the city of Houghton. Now it is under the care of City Manager Scott MacInnes, who practically grew up in the building. His father, John MacInnes, coached hockey at the university for 26 years. “As a little kid, I can recall one series where the players climbed up over the wire mesh and were fighting in the stands,” MacInnes said. Today, both the Colosseum and Dee Stadium remain well preserved by their owners and well used by youth hockey associations, figure skating clubs, and senior teams.
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