CYO: Minor Hockey at the Garden City Arena

Interior of the Garden City Arena after the contruction was completed in 1938.

Contributed by Bill Park.

CYO's Majors last game at the Garden City Arena.

Credit: CYO

The History of CYO

The Catholic Youth Organization, or CYO, was a hockey league formed for Catholic boys in St. Catharines in 1934. The league was formed by George Howard, Father Stanley Cassin, and two members from St. Catherine of Alexandria Church, George “Ozzie” Darte and Geoff Alexander. The league was formed to bring St. Catharines boys together and unite them in the common interests of the love of hockey and the passion to play. When the organization began, there was no arena in the city of St. Catharines so CYO played outdoors on frozen ponds, where the love of hockey has begun for so many Canadian kids, even today. When the Garden City Arena opened four years later in 1938, CYO relocated and made the new arena their home. CYO was the first league to use the Garden City Arena, and one of the last to leave, utilizing the city’s most storied arena until the very end.

A picture of Mary Howard in front of her father, George Howard, a key figure in the creation of the CYO.

Contributed by Mary Howard.

Mary, the daughter of CYO’s George Howard, reflected on her father’s remarkable tenure with CYO and the Garden City Arena. “They were playing around the 16 Mile Creek and then they needed an arena and Ozzie Darte and my dad were like some of the players that helped them get the money and that going,” Mary shared. Beyond George’s role in getting St. Catharines’ most important arena up and running, he was also a timekeeper for CYO for more than 50 years. Mary recalled:

My dad was there every Sunday during hockey season, like he’d go up there at eight in the morning, and be there 'til nine at night. He had breakfast before he’d go, my mom was sending him lunch but she insisted he have a hot meal so one of us, there was six of us, one of us would run it up to him. Well, actually there'd usually be two of us would go up together and we'd take him his meal up at the arena.

It is in thanks to the contributions and sacrifices of people such as George Howard that the youth of St. Catharines had an arena to call home and St. Catharines was able to become the hockey city it is today. George’s portrait was hung in Garden City Arena in recognition of his positive impact on the community and minor hockey in St. Catharines.

Mike Kobylansky coaches his son at CYO hockey practice at the Garden City Arena, on the same ice he played CYO hockey in his youth.

Contributed by Mike Kobylansky. 

CYO & the Community

Throughout the St. Catharines community, CYO allowed children to participate in hockey while also taking part in a welcoming community. It was with the introduction of this league and its integration of local sports that brought together the community around the arena, allowing for social bonds and meaningful relationships to flourish with the help of the youth organization. David Sharron moved to St. Catharines from Windsor and his involvement with CYO helped to integrate him and his family into the community. Sharron coached CYO for 10 years and when asked about the community aspect of CYO, Sharron replied:

It's certainly brought people together, you know, made kids, friends across different schools, like, CYO grab kids from all across the city so you would see them week after week and year after year. And, you know, sometimes someone would leave our team and then see them across, you're playing against them the next year, and you're still friends, but, you know, on ice you just treat them like an opponent and then you're high-fiving afterwards.

CYO hockey player, Jackson, pulls his hockey bag toward the Garden City Arena exit after a hockey game.

Contributed by Mike Kobylansky.

Originally founded to serve the youth in St. Catharines, CYO provides programs from age 5 through 18 while promoting a welcoming environment to partake in the shared love of hockey. Sharron recalled a story of a player he coached who began his hockey journey at 15:

I would say ‘you're the bravest kid I've ever met’ because he started playing hockey at age 15 and he couldn't even skate. And you know, these kids had been skating since they were three, four years old, and he had to learn to skate, learned to play hockey and fit in with the team at 15. And it was absolutely incredible. And he did the extra work and he would try his hardest and he ended up scoring three goals that season and he got the biggest eruption, the biggest like pile-on from everyone on the team when he would score. It was better than winning the championship seeing him succeed and then immediately be accepted into the team.

Inclusivity is not always easy, but due to the efforts of those who strive to build programs from the ground up and create a welcoming culture, CYO and the Garden City Arena have been a corner stone for both hockey in St. Catharines and the community’s youth.

Women's Hockey plaque that was hung in the Garden City Arena. The plaque recognizes the journey and growth of women's and girls' hockey in St. Catharines.

Girls in CYO

Despite hockey being “Canada’s game,” the opportunities for girls' hockey are dramatically fewer than for boys. According to a plaque hung in the Garden City Arena, it was only in 1975 that the first women’s travel hockey team—Senior “C”—was founded, and it wasn’t for another two decades that CYO produced its first all girls team in 1994. But, three years later, in the 1997-98 season, CYO began its first all-girls league.

The St. Denis Saints CYO hockey team featuring Mike Kobyalansky and the female hockey player that won defender of the year on the boys team. 

Contributed by Mike Kobylansky.

Mike Kobylansky recalled just two instances of playing with girls, and only one during his time playing for CYO, but he remembered that she won defender of the year. “She was the defense, defense-man, defense-person of the year I guess, that one year on our team, even with all the guys, so she was actually a good hockey player,” Kobylansky shared. Being the only girl on an all-boys team came with challenges, as Sharron noted as he reflected on his experiences coaching a young girl named Emma:

She had her own dressing room, and, you know, every time she had to come in, it's like, ‘is everyone alright?’…I remember her getting changed in closets and the referee change areas and things. But, by the end, they were-- they had their own dressing room and 15 minutes before a game, they would come in and hang out with everybody and get a better hockey, full hockey experience.

Jane Rizzo shared that there were plenty of girls who would have loved to play hockey at the Garden City Arena back in the 1960s, but that there were no opportunities to do so. As male-dominated as the sport of hockey is, women have never been absent from “Canada’s game,” and, though slowly, the experience and opportunities for girls’ hockey continue to grow.

Mike Kobylansky's proposal on Rex Stimers ice at the Garden City Arena.

Contributed by Mike Kobylansky.

A Bond to Last a Lifetime

"It’s pretty easy to remember the only girl that you played with,” Kobylansky said. So easy, in fact, that 18 years after playing two seasons together, he could still recognize her. In 2013, Kobylansky’s grandfather fractured his shoulder and when he went to the hospital to visit him, it didn’t take long for him to realize that he knew his grandfather’s nurse. She was the same girl he had played hockey with 18 years prior. “She was quick to give me her number. Yeah, one thing led to another and here we are now,” Kobylansky said with a laugh as he recalled the story of how he met his wife.

The day that I saw her again, the day that I went to the hospital was November 4^th, 2013. And so November 4^th is a big day for us, where two years later I then rented the ice at Rex Stimers in that facility, and actually had a photographer waiting in, hiding in the bushes there or whatever. And, yeah, rented the ice for just her and I, took her out to center ice and I got down on one knee and proposed to her. So, the ice that we originally played on as little kids, 10-years-old, 11-years-olds, we were on the team two years in a row-- I even had the arena guys change the score clock so it's the date.

Kobylansky now coaches their son, Jackson, in CYO, and got to share the very ice that he and his wife grew up on with his son. Arenas have always been community hubs and the Garden City Arena is no different. As “Canada’s game,” hockey serves as a way to unite Canadians across the country and create bonds that will last a lifetime and, in some remarkable instances, bring together a family.