Young Man Is Rebuilding Downtown
Broadway Optimist Community Centre.

Winnipeg Free Press Special Feature

Published  July 8th, 1975 By Ritchie Gage

The early morning sun shone on the back of a man rummaging in a garbage
can on the walkway. It’s not an uncommon site around the Broadway Optimist Community Club. The community centre is about as downtown as one can get! It’s boundary takes in the whole city area from Main Street west to Maryland Street bounded by the Assiniboine River and Portage Avenue.
The area isn’t what one would describe as an ideal place to bring up children.

That’s why Broadway Optimist is important. Children who grow up in the business section are more exposed to concrete and garbage pickers and other unsightly human conditions than children in the suburbs. They need the community  centre’s programs even more. Broadway Optimist has had a salty past. The Winnipeg police went there one Saturday in 1961 to break up a fight
between two womens’s hockey teams! The club has a tough reputation. It had
it’s heyday in the early 1960’s and there are pennants on the wall to prove that
some of the athletes did well. But the 1970’s brought a wave of transient residents into the once residential area. The club became tough.

People in the fashionable East Gate, West Gate area didn’t send their children
any more. Eight months ago John Robertson happened on the scene. As club supervisor he feels that the club has a chance to make a comeback on the terms of the area it is supposed to service.  John Robertson is a promoter. Nothing short of good promotion will bring back some strength to the community centre. But there is one more major problem that John Robertson is trying to get his teeth into. He knows that 80 per cent of the children from the neighborhood are from one parent families.

John shares…“You ask a 10 year old why his father or  his mother isn’t at his  or her game and the usual answer is they don’t have either one or the other! ” Community centres all over Winnipeg have problems getting parents to take part.

There are 28 community clubs in Winnipeg. All are given the same opportunity to make the club hum with fun and involvement. “ The biggest attraction at many of the clubs is bingo,” Mr. Robertson said. One may be under the impression that bingo was the forte of churches. But it is a winner in the community clubs also and it makes money.

There is hockey and baseball and tennis and bicycle safety and the wading
pool and what ever other programs that the club is approached to include.
But the biggest need is people. “We find that the largest part of this area
population are university students and day time business people,” John said.
He feels that both could be a good source of volunteers. “There are lots of
children but not enough of volunteer adults to go around. Mr. Robertson
believes in looking after promotion in a big way and has had some successful
tournaments.

His sponge hockey and outdoor volleyball tournaments have gone over exceptionally well. The sponge  hockey tournament was remembered for the brutally cold weather in January in which eight teams took part. Then again in February another foot hockey tournament.

And Mr. Robertson arranged a very successful outdoor volleyball tournament
and the turn out brought teams from all over the city. The difference was that the teams were young and older adults that didn’t need anyone to drive them around.

“You’ve got to look after these people also. Not everyone gets a chance to play  hockey and volleyball once they leave school.”

John knows what it is like to have a lot of people around him. He sometimes
sleeps in the premises to make sure that the ice has the right coating in winter. John comes from a family of 16. “When we wanted to play baseball, sponge hockey, football, soccer, we had the Robertson teams!” And they still play regularly.

People make a community club tick. Children need someone to cheer on the snowbanks when it’s a bitter day outside. They need people to talk to in
the informal atmosphere a community club creates. Small towns seem to have more people involved as do the suburban areas. Some of the suburban community clubs have put up beautiful warming shacks for hockey and their diamonds are immaculate.

At Broadway Optimist there is little room for baseball or football. There is
black top and a popular wading pool and a few swings. “You can put up all the
equipment you want and construct a new building but without people coming
forward to regenerate the spirit of the community, then we’ll just struggle on.”

John also says that the club is looking for support from businesses in downtown Winnipeg. They could use baseball and hockey uniforms. The city does not pay for uniforms, contrary to popular belief. Broadway Optimist is just a postage stamp sized lot in the business district off the corner of Broadway and Young Street. Most people drive by day after day and never know it’s there except for the tell tale hockey lights in winter.

John Robertson wants it to thrive again. And if grit, honesty, passion, and
enthusiasm will bring this about, then Broadway Optimist is already on it’s way
back.

This 1975 Winnipeg Free Press article conveyed the roots of Canford Sports of Winnipeg! And 40 years later, on Feb 7th 2015, Broadway and the City of Winnipeg unveiled a plaque honoring both John and the centre’s heritage with Winnipeg celebrated as the SPONGE HOCKEY WORLD CAPITAL~