Summer sports in Lafontaine Park

This rather fruity looking photo op was conducted in the mid 1950s show to prove that Montrealers were willing to skate outdoors in June. These photos were shot in Lafontaine Park where an outdoor rink was launched in the sweltering heat. 
   This required massive refrigeration and the experiment didn't last long, although five of the city's 177 rinks were artificially refrigerated during that period, presumably from fall to spring. Nowadays there are more indoor rinks than in our hockey heyday and only the outdoor skating rink at the Old Port remains of the pipe-in coldness variety. The killer is sunshine which tends to melt ice quite fast. Cote St. Luc contemplated building an outdoor artificially-refrigerated rink a few years back but realized that a roof protecting the ice from the sun would be necessary. 
   That sucker would have cost somewhere around half a mil. By the mid 60s the city offered 237 rinks, by the mid 70s that total rose to 274 but 1980 Drapeau slashed service at many and the total has now diminished to about 168 in the city. More would have surely been cut but rinkis are less labour intensive than they once were, as small zambonis are used to freshen up the ice at regular intervals. So next Sunday let's all show up at Lafontaine Park with a pair of skates and a tray of icecubes and try to re-enact this magic, rare moment of outdoor summertime skating in Montreal.