There have been many a moment where time stood still at The Arena in Medicine Hat.
The birth of the Medicine Hat Tigers, legendary NHL careers started, highlight-reel goals, bone-crunching hits and, more gratifying, five Ed Chynoweth Cup banners raised to the rafters.
But in the Tigers’ first season of play in the city, the counter of time literally stood still, albeit in a heap.
On Dec. 11, 1970, elementary school teams from St. Louis and Herald schools had just faced off when the 1,700-pound score clock came crashing down onto centre ice of the then-named Arena Convention Centre. Thankfully, no players were under the clock when it hit the ice, and to lesser importance, the falling clock did not even crack the ice.
“It came down in about a second,” said. St. Louis principal Ted butcher.
The News is looking back at notable events from history as we celebrated our 140th publishing year on Oct. 29.
The mishap mess was cleaned up by city staff after skaters evacuated the ice. Arena manager Ray Lambert was attending a staff meeting in the building at the time of the “terrific crash.”
“We’ve been jinxed on that clock ever since we got it.”
The $6,000 clock was wrecked and additional sound system fastened to the clock was feared to be damaged in the accident. The total cost was feared to be $10,000 if both clock and sound systems were lost.
The clock was sent to Iowa to be repaired, according to the Jan. 20, 1971 edition of the News. A new enclosing cage was already manufactured and all that remained was testing of the various circuits within the clock. Those tests were projected to take a month with the clock to be shipped and re-installed back in ACC.
City staff had originally expected the clock back in the Arena by Jan. 15 of that year. They ordered the general contractor, Rittinger Construction Ltd. of Swift Current, to pay the full cost of the repairs.
Time continued to tick on without a clock in the arena. At the Feb. 1 council meeting, staff was asked when the clock would return to the rafters of the Arena, to be joined by the sound system that would play the sounds of a newly-donated organ from the Lions Club.
Staff did not know exactly when its arrival time would be.
There was no documented return of the clock to the Arena, but the reason for the crash was found to be an improper connection with cables in the ceiling.
According to legendary Tigers’ broadcast Bob Ridley, the clock was back in the rafters a couple of months after it hit the ice.
