Gateway Recreation Centre

1717 Gateway Road, Winnipeg

Serving North East Winnipeg Families for 50 Years & Counting.

In the late 1960’s a group of residents in the rapidly developing north east area of the City began pursuing the logistics of establishing a Community Centre. The chosen site was Gateway & Bonner and in November 1970 the decision was made & the first executive elections for the Centre were held December 8, 1970. The original board consisted of:

1. M. Janzen
   M. Sidorski
   D. Peabody
   F. Krivak
   A. Foster
   D. Cunningham
   L. Moman
   D. Armstrong
   R. Wozney
   L. Charriere

From humble beginnings in a clubhouse that later served as the shed for storage of a tractor & a small meeting room with an Atco trailer serving as a skate change facility to a $6 Million facility that exists today. The Centre has been built largely on the back of the many volunteers of the area including but not limited to individuals with experience in the trades, professional services, business owners, and politicians who shared the view of all the families that wanted to  enhance the area & facilities for the children of the area.

The first step in building the facility that is seen today began with the construction of the original club house & hall where the administrative offices housed today in the early 1970’s with subsequent expansions of that portion of the facility in 1984 which virtually doubled the size of that structure & then again in 1990 when the final expansion for elevator, stage, storage, & cloak room added to the upper level.

In 1974 a group formed Gateway Nursery School that catered to the preschool children & their families. The demographics of the area were rapidly expanding at that time & for a number of subsequent years. That meant line ups for registration (pre on-line) and continued in operation until 2011 when demographics had changed and the need for full time day care became prevalent with more two income families being the norm.

Subsequent expansion of facilities including outdoor rinks & attached heated dressing rooms followed as well as developing soccer & baseball fields.

*In1990 when Gateway acquired access to land south of the arena’s through land dedication we were able to develop the soccer & baseball fields.

*In 1991 the Centre decided to place the shell of the arena we now enjoy over two outdoor rinks so wind chill & temperatures allowed our children access to rinks regardless of how low the mercury dipped. (price tag $700,000)

*1995 the development of the rinks and spectator areas including installation of an artificial ice plant providing a year round facility for ice sports. (price tag $1.3 Million)

* 1998 the first indoor soccer arena dedicated for soccer activities and utilized also by baseball training, lawn bowling in winter months, craft sales etc. (price tag $1.8 Million) Subsequent turf replacement in 2008 costing $110,000.

*2009 replacement of the roof of the arena complex (cost price $1,1 Million)

* 2014 spray pad installation

* 2017 Tractor and equipment storage addition to the arena & demolition of the old original tractor shed/club house. (price tag $1.1 Million     )

* 2018 Digital Sign installation (price tag $77,000.) and a replacement Turf for the soccer complex ( price tag $122,000.)

* 2021 Replacement of the ice plant (price tag $661,000.)

Over the first fifty years there has been a number of persons step up to serve as leaders of the Centre and many, who while they served perhaps only a term or two as President, they did hold various other positions for many years. A history of your Presidents is:

Merv Janzen 1970-72               Don Armstrong 1972-76            Bob Shmigelski 1976-77

Chuck Walker 1977-80             Don Tymko  1980-81                  Lil Schneider 1981-82

Murray Mainland   1982-84     Ron Newman  1984-85              Bob Tait  1985-86

Bob McCallum  1986-87           Garth Nolan  1987-90                 Roy Chambers 1990 -93

Vladimir Bastl  1993-94             Perry Marquis  1994-96             Reinhard Mohr  1996-97

Perry Marquis  1997 -99           Bob Davison  1999-2001            Charles Carrington  2001-2005

Andrew Skogen 2006-08          Brent McIntyre 2008 -10            Andrew Skogen 2010 -14

Tammy Harper 2014 -22          Len Fabris 2022 to present.

Aside from offering sport programs like baseball, softball, soccer, hockey, & ringette designed primarily for youth but also rented to adult groups, lawn bowling for seniors, craft sales, movie nites etc.

2020-21 will long be remembered for Covid 19. While this was a major disruption to everyone’s lives, we prefer to look ahead as operations return to normal.

(Updated Oct.2022)