The QMJHL Arena Guide - Arpidrome, Québec Remparts

On January 29, 1982, the Hull Olympiques were leading the Québec Remparts by 3-1 midway through the second period at the Colisée. A transformer suddenly blew, and the arena was plunged into darkness. With no quick fix available, the game was postponed.

A month later, the Olympiques were back in the area and available to make up the game, but for the date picked, Feb. 22, the Colisée was not available. For whatever reason, the Pavillon de la Jeunesse and PEPS were also overlooked, and the makeup game was played at an arena called the Arpidrome in the Quebec City suburb of Charlesbourg. The Olympiques won the rematch, 10-0.

I've visited a few single-game CHL arenas in my day, but the Arpidrome was the first time I'd ever been to one that hadn't even hosted a complete game. It's a nondescript 1970's building in a 1970's suburb north of Quebec City, and is not unlike any other community arena you've ever been to. There's a pool and a high school attached, a large parking lot, and it takes navigating a substantial maze of residential streets just to find your way to the rink.

The ice surface is surrounded by bare walls on three sides and seven rows of spectator seating on the fourth side. The seats are green, two-man wooden benches. The only other noteworthy thing about the Arpidrome is that the hockey rink also has the necessary hash marks to be used by curling - the local curling club apparently uses the ice in addition to hockey and figure skating.

It's a good thing, I thought as I left the Arpidrome, that this random ice rink in the suburbs is going to be forever chronicled on the internet because of a blown transformer in 1982. This is not in any way a waste of perfectly good electrons.