'Community Centre Memories' CD serves as new arena fundraiser
Posted Jun 24, 2010 By Ryland Coyne
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EMC News - It's more than 60 years old. Thousands and thousands of people have passed through its doors over that time, winter, spring, summer and fall. And Ron Haskins has been there through it all. 
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Lyndon Slewidge, who works out of the OPP East Region Headquarters in Smiths Falls, has lent his voice to the fund-raising CD 'Community Centre Memories' which is being released this week.
So who better to write the lyrics for a song entitled 'Community Centre Memories' than the self-proclaimed 'rink rat' who spent the better part of his youth at the venerable old Smiths Falls rink.
"I think I started to think about it (writing the song) when Robbie (Rob Dopson) took over as chair of the fund-raising committee," Haskins, the long-time fire chief in Montague Township, told the EMC last week. "It just came to me one day."
Haskins, who also wrote the lyrics for the Old Home Week 2000 fundraising song 'Do You Remember These', says he contacted members of the local band ESP and brought on OPP officer Lyndon Slewidge, well-known for his singing of 'O Canada' at Ottawa Senators hockey games at Scotiabank Place, as lead vocalist.
"I ran it by Dennis (Staples, ESP band member) and he really liked it," Haskins said.
From there, everyone gathered together at Little Chicago Studios in Montague where producer Tim Greencorn used his recording and mixing expertise to pull it all together for a new CD which has been released this week.
A little over 1,000 copies have been made, and will feature both the 'Community Centre Memories' piece (sung to the tune of 'Moments to Remember' by the Four Lads) and 'Do You Remember These?'. Selling at $10 apiece, it's hoped the CD will result in a $10,000 donation for the new rink.
"It turned out pretty good," Haskins said.
While hockey and figure skating are the dominant events for which the Memorial Community Centre has been home, Haskins says the rink has hosted so much more including ringette and broomball, wrestling and boxing matches as well as roller skating and record hops.
"One year, (comedian) Rich Little spun the records. Even then, he'd do imitations of Donald Duck and other characters," Haskins recalled. "I remember that like it was yesterday."
The rink was where he got his first job, at age 10, helping to scrape the ice and flood it with barrels. While he was also a talented hockey player ('Curly' Haskins was a member of the inaugural Smiths Falls Bears junior A team in the early 1960s), some of his fondest memories were of the big wrestling matches and the massive crowds they would attract.
"Wrestling was big, big, big in the 1950s and early '60s," he said.
While many claim the biggest crowd at the rink was for the Montreal Canadiens' exhibition game against the Smiths Falls Rideaus (a game that ended in a tie) in 1953, he believes some of the "rastlin'", with its ring-side seating, outdrew it. Just some of the big names that came to town included the Golden Terror (who had to remove his mask after losing a bout with Bill Curry), Flipper Watson and Gorgeous George.
"I lived there," Haskins said, recalling how his eyes were bigger than saucers watching some of these larger-than-life figures.
Others involved in the project include ESP members Claire Porter (bass guitar), Dave White (drums), Ray Doherty (keyboard), Peter Woods (saxophone) and Mark Haskins who designed the CD cover.
"I just want to create some interest and make some money for the rink," Ron says.
The CD will be available for sale at a variety of outlets around town as well as at the 'Rink 'n' Roll' dance at the Community Centre July 3.
'COMMUNITY CENTRE MEMORIES'
The following are some excerpts of the new song 'Community Centre Memories', written by Ron Haskins and recorded by Lyndon Slewidge and ESP as a fundraiser for the new arena fund.
'Those Thomson years
McKenney Rockburn teams
The CJETs, the Rideaus and their Allan Cup dream
We will have these moments to remember
The Canadiens and Rideaus
And that tie they got
The Minto Follies and Barbara Ann Scott
We will have these moments to remember
On Saturday from two to four
We'd skate with all our friends
Then at night at eight o'clock
We'd do it all again
Those cheers we heard
Of 'Go Bears Go'
And who can forget old whiskey row
We will have these moments to remember...
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