John Myndzak

John Myndzak

Lately, a lot has been written about the Civic Arena and when the last game was played, former hockey players were recognized but I haven't noticed any recognition of the people that brought that building to life every day of its existence, the ice attendants. Key among these people is John Myndzak, later known to everybody as Manjack.

John was born at Notch Hill (near Tappen, BC) about the same time as the Civic Arena was built and grew up in the red "Railroad House” across 39th Ave from the Civic. In those early days, the gable ends of the arena were all window and when John went to bed on game nights, he could see the lights on in the arena and hear the roar of the crowd when someone scored. In due course, John was old enough to skate and when a group of boys decided to use the arena after hours, John was sent down the coal chute to open the doors.

Vernon's cold storage and ice making facility, or ice house, was located where the parking lot on the east side of the Civic is and the curling rink was to the south where an apartment block is today. When John was out of school, he had a choice of jobs either in the ice house or as an ice attendant at the Civic Arena and he chose to be an attendant or rink rat as they were unkindly called.

Under the west bleachers of the Civic was John's office, a lunch room also used by some other city workers, a workshop, the "Zamboni”garage and the skate sharpening room. Washrooms were under the rest of the west bleachers. At the north end was the dressing room for the Vernon Lakers, the boiler room and the old coal bin which was used, in the post coal era, to store the bulbs from the lily ponds over the winter and to use the coal bin's inky darkness to make the city's Christmas poinsettias’ leaves turn red. Under the east bleachers were the original change rooms, some of which became offices for PeeWee hockey, and the engine room where the compressors and ammonia for making ice were. On the south end, "new” changing rooms were built, sometime in the 1960s I think, with a concession on the second floor.

Manjack was in charge of all this. He would put the ice in sometime in early fall, painting the lines and circles under the ice, maintain the ice during games and during the season and remove the ice in early summer. The summer season was the time for painting bleachers, repairing equipment and lights, and helping the summer circus that came through town often with elephants and lions and tigers.

John had been working at the Civic for thirty or so years when I was hired and shared the lunchroom under the bleachers with John and other workers. It was a good place to have lunch when Vernon's May temperatures were hitting 35 degrees.

John Myndzak retired after working for some 40 years at the Civic Arena and still lives in town. He has aged as has the Civic but he should be acknowledged as being the person that brought the arena to life everyday and put it to bed every night. Without the ice attendants, the Arena was just a big space with potential, but no life. So when you think of the old Civic, give a nod to John and the other ice attendants that he managed over a long career.