The demolition of the Winnipeg Arena made national news and was captured with great commitment to detail by this site.
So the Old Barn, as it was affectionately called, was eulogized over the past couple of days despite the fact the demolition had been occuring over a number of months and Sunday morning's implosion was just the death blow that — eventually — brought it officially to ruin.
The Arena was forgotten about rather quickly after it was officially made a relic when the ritzy downtown MTS Centre was opened in 2004 and the main tenants, the Manitoba Moose, switched homes. Winnipeg is a city not big enough for the both of them, after all.
With the cookie-cutter variety of arenas in North America popping up in virtually every city of any repute, I always enjoyed the fact the Winnipeg Arena had its quirks and was proud of those quirks. I think that's a statement about most Winnipeggers, too: We're usually proud of our idiosyncrasies.
The Arena held a number of memories for me and I was far from pleased to see it destroyed. When the Eaton's building downtown was demolished to put up the MTS Centre, I hardly shed a tear because I had no emotional connection to that structure, what with it having been constructed and long through its heyday decades before I came around.
But the Arena, I realize now, was the first building anywhere that I held an affinity towards and — now that it no longer exists — I too know now that I had some sort of odd emotional investment in it. Folks who had been in Winnipeg for decades were sad to see the Eaton's building fall because it had been a part of their upbringing, a significant figure throughout their lives and the loss of it was taking away something they directly identified with for a large part of their existence. So then, suggesting that a faceless framework of steel and bricks has a familial feel to it isn't so crazy.
That's how Winnipeg Arena was to me.
I watched from the cheap seats my first Jets games when I was in Grade 1 and my brother got some tickets through school for being a patrol guard. I saw the Calgary Flames — Hakan Loob, Lanny McDonald and Kent Nilsson — and the Boston Bruins — Rick Middleton and Ray Bourque — that year. As years went on I got to see the Hartford Whalers (my beloved other team), Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers at their peak, Denis Savard and the Chicago Blackhawks. In essence, I saw some of the greatest NHLers ever come to my city, something significant now in hindsight as Winnipeg yearns to bring a team back. From the low rows in 1993, I watched the Toronto Maple Leafs with my dad.
I went with my Sir John Franklin Explorers hockey team and cheered wildly from the absolute back of the arena as our head coach miraculously managed to land a paper airplane on the ice. I still remember Andy Van Hellemond pausing the game slightly between face-offs so that he could retrieve it from the ice. A tremendous memory and it happened some 15 years ago.
I skated on that ice, too, which still ranks among the greatest experiences of my life. My brother, when coaching our River Heights Cardinals, got us a practice on the Arena ice and I couldn't get over that I was skating on the same spots that Dale Hawerchuk did when he was the idol of all Winnipeg Jets fans.
In elementary school I competed in the city-wide speedskating championships and even won a few, although I don't remember how many. I do remember, however, that with all the schools bringing supporters it was — even then — an electric feeling of performing on the city's most coveted stretch of ice in front of screaming onlookers.
I was there in 1995 at the premature funeral of the Jets. Don Cherry called Winnipeggers the greatest fans on the planet, Ed Olczyk screamed "when we win the Stanley Cup ... It's coming back to Winnipeg" and, quite conversely Thomas Steen, in his famously shy way, wished aloud for one more year of the NHL in Winnipeg. He, and all of us, surprisingly got our wish to have one final year-long good-bye.
I made it a point to be at the final game ever played at Winnipeg Arena and wrote a column about it for the next day's edition, Nov. 7/2004, and I'm glad I did.
I've barely been back to Winnipeg in the months since the deconstruction of the Arena began and I'm not sure I'm all that enthused to see the blank hole that now exists.
A crowd gathered around in a prolonged state of perverse gawking on Sunday morning to see the Winnipeg Arena, and 50 years of history, implode. Cheers went up with the dust and the smoke. I wasn't there and I'm glad I wasn't.
All the images I need are permanently engrained in me and I'll prefer to leave them that way. After all, that Old Barn housed a lot more than just some steel and bricks. 
NB: For another reminder of Winnipeggers' unique and unmatchable love for their Jets, this is a nice trip down memory lane.
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