Adelaide Glaciarium in Hindley Street a launch pad for Australian ice hockey but stays with own roller polo version
The Adelaide Glaciarium was on the Hindley Street, Adelaide, site of what was previously the Cyclorama and later became the Olympia roller skating ring and then West's cinema. Top right: H. Newman Reid advertising a hockey match at the Adelaide Glaciarium he says had been "declared by expert continential skaters to be the finest in the world". Bottom right: Hockey on the ice was a sideline to carnivals and fun events such as fancy dress contests. (The girl dressed as Little Red Riding Hood is Lily Adams).
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia and Ross Carpenter
Adelaide Glaciarium (or Ice Palace), the first indoor ice skating rink opened in Australia in 1904, was the test bed for the start of the nation’s ice hockey.
The Adelaide Glaciarium was built by H. Newman Reid, who took over the Cyclorama amusement building at 89 Hindley Street, Adelaide, after it was burnt out in 1899. Reid, and his two sons Andy and Hal, were at the 1904 Glaciarium meeting that introduced the idea of playing a game on the rink akin to roller polo. This launched what was called “hockey on the ice”, played on a tiny oval-shaped skating circuit with a post in the middle to hold up the roof.
Reid opened the Melbourne Glaciarium in 1906 but the organised hockey games there more like the Canadian rules and, after a visit by Canadian teams, the Victorians abandoned the bandy ball for the puck to became the birthplace of ice hockey in Australia. But Adelaide persisted with hockey on the ice, also called “roller polo” or “ice polo”, (also described as being like “football on ice skates”) with teams of six players.
The first organised game, in between carnival activities with skaters in fancy dress, was between a Rink team (Watts, Langley, Bates. Barnett and professor Caldwell as captain) against the Scratch team (The Rev. A. N. Garrett, Dr. R. E. Harrold, Rhoeder, F. Gate and J. Gow as captain).
In May 1905, the first of the Warehouseman's Association competition matches was played between teams from G. & R. Wills & Co. and James Marshall & Co. in front of 800 people. Other teams in the competition were from Harris, Scarfe & Co., Clutterbuck Brothers, D. & W. Murray Ltd and Goode, Durrant & Co.. Later that year, teams representing Australia (Parker, Clutterbuck, Hosking, Nightingale, Butler, Part) and England (Swanson, Barker, Poole, Knight, Watts, Osendale) played a hockey-on-the-ice match at the Adelaide Glaciarium.
Harris, Scarce and Co. later won the Warehouseman's Association premiership, with gold medals presented to the winning team by professor James Brewer, billed as “the world's greatest skater”.
Two years later, the Glaciarium ice skating days were over when its ice surface replaced with a rock asphalt for roller skating and the building was renamed the Olympia roller skating rink that only lasted until 1908 when it became West’s picture theatre. More identity changes followed, with the premises now the Grainger Studio of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
