Adapted from Chapter 4
Thomas Ahearn and Warren Soper were local entrepreneurs who made their mark installing electric street lighting throughout Ottawa, and by extension to Ottawa’s hockey rinks, in 1885. By 1891, they were on to something new; a plan to bring spectators to hockey games.
The two entrepreneurs had introduced the Ottawa Electric Railway (OER) electric street rail the previous summer. The cars were clean and comfortable with upholstered seats, electric lighting and provision for heaters to be inserted between the seats when winter came.
The OER did not bring passengers right to the Rideau Rink’s door in Sandy Hill, where the Ottawa Hockey Club was then playing its games, but conveniently close. And the success of the Ottawa Hockey Club meant that more people than ever before wanted to go through that door which meant more customers for the OER.
This arrangement between team, rink owner, and transit operator proved again to be mutually beneficial when the hockey team moved to its fourth arena, the Dey’s Rink. The Dey’s Rink was located at Ann Street, now Gladstone Avenue, and Bay Street on what was then the southern fringe of the city’s populated area. Moving here was thought to be a gamble, but being on the new line of the Ottawa Electric Railway proved enough to draw hockey fans to the rink. From its grand opening on December 17, 1896, to the end of the 1907 hockey season, hockey fans streamed to the Dey’s Rink with many arriving on the new electric railway trams.
As good as the hockey was, just getting to the game, it was said, was half the fun.
Despite new electric cars, winter service could still provide a challenge for the Ottawa Electric Railway. Hockey fans nonetheless piled into the cars and headed for the Rideau Rink to see their team play. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA PA8420
Sources:
Kitchen, Paul. Dey Brothers’ Rinks Were Home to the Senators. Ottawa: Historical Society of Ottawa, 1993.
Kitchen, Paul. Win, Tie, Or Wrangle: The Inside Story of the Old Ottawa Senators, 1883-1935. Manotick: Penumbra Press, 2008.