For 25 years, the Western Fair Sports Centre in London, Ontario has been the cold, echoing heart of the city's winter-sports community — a place where a child's first wobbly skate slowly becomes a teenager's decisive breakaway, where local junior hockey loyalists cheer the London Nationals, and where national tournaments have drawn competitors from across the country. This September, during the ten days of the Western Fair, the building that opened on the fairgrounds in 2001 will turn itself into the celebration's centrepiece, marking a quarter century of ice with 25 hours of skating, a 9/11 commemorative game, and an afternoon of NHL alumni hockey.
The anniversary festivities unfold during the ten days of the Western Fair, which runs September 11 to 20.
The Sports Centre opened in 2001, and what rose on Florence Street was ambitious even by the standards of Southwestern Ontario: a 160,000-square-foot facility sheltering four ice surfaces under one roof — three NHL-sized pads alongside an Olympic-dimension sheet — plus 23 dressing rooms, with accessible design that welcomed sledge hockey. The doors opened to the athletes, families and user groups who have filled its boards ever since.
The celebration formally begins with a 4:30 p.m. ceremony on Friday, September 11 on the front steps of the Sports Centre, complete with live music from Bradley Kerr in the lobby and a Hockey Circus Show of acrobatics and puck juggling at the entrance. Opening night also carries commemorative weight: at 6 p.m., local first responders and medical professionals take to the ice for a 9/11 commemorative hockey game — a fitting way to honour those who serve by putting them at the centre of the rink. It is one of three ticketed contests during the ten days, each priced at $20 with Western Fair admission included.
The next afternoon brings one of the building's most faithful tenants into the spotlight. The London Nationals open their home season on Saturday, September 12 at 2 p.m. against the Chatham Maroons — a celebration of local hockey on one of the biggest weekends of the year.
Between and around the hockey, the building will be given over to its most fundamental purpose: open ice. Public skating sessions run through the weekend and into Monday, while the London Speed Skating Club will stage a skills showcase on the ice. Perhaps the most heartfelt programming is the 25-Hour Skate-a-Thon, a partnership with the Children's Health Foundation that will run in staggered blocks from Saturday, September 12 through Monday, September 14, challenging participants to log 25 hours on the ice and raise $25,000 in support of Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre. In a building famous for hosting tournaments, it is a reminder that some of its most important moments happen at the level of a child gliding across the surface for the very first time.
For spectacle, the fair has also reached across the province to Toronto. From September 17 to 19, the Sports Centre will host a travelling Hockey Hall of Fame experience from Toronto, included with fair admission, bringing iconic trophies, rare artifacts and interactive games to the ten-day celebration.
The ten days wind down on Sunday, September 20, when former NHL players take to the ice against the London Law Enforcement All Stars in a game supporting the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics Ontario, closing the celebration the way the building itself has so often been used — as a stage where sport brings a community together for a cause.
In the two and a half decades since it opened, the Sports Centre has grown into far more than a rink. It has hosted learn-to-skate programs and birthday parties, concerts and charity events, and national tournaments. This September, as fairgoers gather on the steps of the Sports Centre, the building gets its chance to reflect the quarter of a century it has spent as London's home for hockey, skating, and community sport.