Roger Bellwood Arena and Gord Innes Community Centre Opened 2012
Fenelon Falls’ first arena was built in the 1890s at a site which has since become the Post Office parking lot. Superseded by a much larger wooden structure at 45 Bond Street West, this second arena had become antiquated by the 1960s. The community rallied together, donating the money to build a cement block arena in the late 1960s—one dinner raised $13,000 and a door-to-door campaign another $15,000. Many local residents volunteered to work on replacing the arena.
Though the new cement block building had been intended to be a permanent solution, it tended to mould. Each year, Garnet Graham raised the money to repaint the arena, but no one had a way to get the mould problem truly under control. Though they had been adequate for the 1960s, by the late 1980s, the dressing rooms were small, scarcely able to accommodate the minor hockey teams of the day. The largest dressing room (#4) had a cement block shower, that was mouldy, with a drain that could not keep up with the influx of water. It would fill up until it overflowed the cement block designed to retain water, then ran to the drain at the centre of the dressing room floor. Minor hockey players would race to be the first one into the shower. The building was also not accessible and it was evident that something had to be done to build a new arena.
In 1990, the Rotary Club of Fenelon Falls raised $5000 to commission a study to determine the level of support, which found “overwhelming” interest in having a new arena. Gord Innes, a longtime member of the Rotary Club, recognized that the village did not have a community centre that was large enough to host a wedding, show or public event, and strongly advocated for building a community centre. In 1991, the Fenelon Area Community and Recreation Centre Committee Inc. formed, to design the arena and raise the funds needed for its construction. Fenelon Falls Reeve Roger Bellwood joined the committee and would become its chair. For many years, he was a tireless advocate for the project.
On August 3, 1993, Fenelon Township agreed in principle to provide land adjacent to the village’s Tennis Courts for the new arena, subject to the agreement of the Fair Board. In 1994, the village of Fenelon Falls agreed to lease the right to construct a hydro-electric plant at Fenelon Falls to Consolidated Hydro Limited, creating a fund to improve the lives of village residents. Though controversial at the time because it reduced the flow of water over the falls, it would contribute $1,000,000 to the arena in 2007. In the meantime, the committee hosted street dances, sold Nevada tickets and put on an Elvis Presley tribute show to raise money for the arena and community centre. In 2001, Fenelon Falls and Fenelon Township were amalgamated into the City of Kawartha Lakes.
In 2002, the Recreation Centre Committee hired RAI Architects to plan the facility, which included an arena, curling club and community centre. In the years that followed, they secured approvals from the City of Kawartha Lakes. On March 8, 2011, Norlon Builders London Limited was the lowest bidder for the tender to construct the arena at $6,950,000 plus HST—allowing work to finally begin two decades after the project had been initiated. The City of Kawartha Lakes, Government of Canada and Province of Ontario all contributed equally to augment the funds that the committee had raised.
On October 23, 2012 the new facility officially opened. Because Gord Innes had advocated for so many years to construct a community centre, the committee secured approval for it to be named in his honour. The arena was named after the late Roger Bellwood, who had led the project for so many years, but passed away in 2009, before it could be completed. The arena included an NHL sized rink with seating for 280, while the community centre was designed to accommodate 350. It is a fully accessible facility. The old Fenelon Falls Arena was demolished in January 2016. Though the new facility was officially named after two volunteers who spent years advocating for the project, the City of Kawartha Lakes has largely discontinued the use of the official names, simply calling the building the “Fenelon Falls Community Centre.” The municipality has not responded to requests to have a storyboard at the arena to remember the volunteers guided the project to completion.
