Evangeline Rec Centre set to host first event

Evangeline Recreational Centre set to host first event

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

In April 2010, the Evangeline community was struck hard as the Evangeline Recreational Centre burned down.

Thursday will help repair it, as only five months since construction began the first event in the newly built Evangeline Recreational Centre will be held as a part of the community’s Acadian festival.

The 400- seat centre, complete with a National Hockey League sized ice surface and a full work out gym, will be hosting the festival’s Strongman/ Women’s strength and fitness competition at 7:30 p.m.

Cedric Gallant, Evangeline Recreational Centre manager, was quite excited to be able to unveil it to the public Thursday.

“(It feels) unbelievable. It’s going to be so great to see people walk into this building and just look their faces saying, ‘Wow.” It’s going to be awesome, great.”

Gallant said people avoided coming in while construction was going on so they could just see the finished product.

“Definitely everybody will be pleased. Our old rink was great, but everything is brand new and that type of thing,” he said. “Their reaction is the main thing and they’re just going to love it.”

Gallant said though the old rink burning down was a “heart wrenching experience” it’ll be heartwarming to have the new one open.

“There’s always a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The way the community got together with this and the fundraising that they did was just amazing. It’s their building.”

The complex is 95 per cent done with only minor details needing to be finished, like glass, boards and the ice for the ice surface and seats. Though they were on schedule, Gallant said they still had to scramble to finish a few things.

“Everything has been going smoothly but the last couple of days we may have scrambled a bit,” he said. “But everyone here has been working hard.”

Gallant said when he walks in tomorrow night with the Evangeline Recreational Centre filled he will be very emotional.

“It’s just because the old rink wasn’t supposed to burn but it did and now the new rink wasn’t supposed to be here yet, maybe another year or so, but everything went so quick and so fast,” he said. “We went from being very, very sad to being very, very oh my God type of thing. It’s going to be very emotional all weekend here.”