If you’ve got a child in the Clarkson Sheridan Soccer Club, chances are, you’ve spent many evenings watching kids charge around the grass during the summer months at Bruce Reynolds Park just off of Springbank Road in Mississauga, near Sheridan Mall. Have you perhaps wondered who Bruce Reynolds was?
About 40 years ago and beyond, the park was called Oakridge Park and the subdivision surrounding it was known as Westport. I don’t think you’ll see either on a sign these days. Back in 1968, a family named Reynolds moved into the area. Their home backed on to Oakridge Park and the family patriarch, Bruce, seeing a couple of local kids getting into trouble, decided that a good way to keep them on the straight and narrow was to keep them busy in sports activities. Bruce got together some volunteers and some partners from the city and built an old fashioned outdoor hockey rink in the park. He signed up a bunch of kids from the neighbourhood, organized 4 teams with names commemorating the local streets and started what is known as the Oakridge Park Hockey League (OPHL).
My husband played a couple of seasons in the league when he was a boy. He remembers wearing the banana yellow jersey of the Portway Pirates (Portway is the street bordering the park on the east side) and going head to head against the Bunsden Bombers, the Mississauga Marauders and some other team who he thinks was the Flyers but he can’t remember what street they were named after (he’s old).
The OPHL is still going. As it always has been, it is run entirely by volunteers and charges no registration fee. Bruce poured his heart and soul into looking after the rink and the league. He conscripted all his buddies into helping run the league, officiate the games and look after the ice.
The games are played outdoors for as long as the weather permits, in snow and sun, rain and cold. Nowadays, most games are played on the artificial outdoor rink at Martingrove Park in Etobicoke but some games are still played as in the original league, outside on the naturally frozen ice in Bruce Reynolds park, until the edges of the rink are too thin to support any more skating for the season.
In 1989, Bruce Reynolds passed away after having dedicated 20 years of his life volunteering in his community to run the OPHL. The Mississauga Oakridge Ratepayers Association led the movement to have Oakridge Park renamed in Bruce’s honour and succeeded just before he passed away.
Bruce’s legacy was continued by his family and by the many volunteers who continue to keep the OPHL going strong. It recently celebrated its 40th anniversary and good old Hazel was there to drop the ceremonial puck for the kids. If you ever want to know what kind of an impact someone can have on a community, have a look at the guest book of the OPHL for comments from kids, parents and organizers. And then think about Bruce and his gang, the next time you visit the park.
For more info on life in Mississauga, please visit my website.
No comments:
Post a Comment