14 REWIND OLDSCHOOL
THE REWIND SERIES CONTINUES WITH BUILDING THE RINK Plans for the new Blackburn Ice Arena were unveiled at a press launch at the Queen’s Moat House Hotel in Blackburn on 2nd July 1990 and then reported on the front page of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph the same day. The venue was also
was originally earmarked to host indoor sports events such as boxing and volleyball if Manchester’s bid to stage the 1996 Olympic Games had been successful. That is why the exterior of the arena was adorned with the impressive looking Olympic Rings. Interestingly enough, the Arena wasn’t originally going to be built in Blackburn at all but in Liverpool. However, negotiations with the then Merseyside Development Corporation fell
through and Blackburn showed the most interest in taking the project on as part of the ambitious £30 million Lower Audley regeneration project. A City Grant of £1.3m from the Department of the Environment also helped pave the way. The whole concept of the Arena was that it should be a proper EVENTS arena rather than just an ice rink and great care was taken with the arrangement of the seating. At an extra building cost of around £400,000 the building was designed 11 meters wider than it necessarily needed to be to ensure that proper tiered banked seating (with decent leg room…!) could be installed along both sides of the ice - which was unusual for ice rink designs of that time. In fact, when Blackburn opened, it was said to be the only ice arena in the country to have perfect sightlines from every single seat. Pete Murray recalls that they even elected to have slightly fewer seats than they could have done in order to ensure this. The idea was that – for other indoor events, a special carpet could be laid over the ice surface and more