The original; Gouin Street Arena opened in 1904, seating about 1000 people on bench style seats.

On November 8, 1910, a fire completely destroyed most of the building. The idea for a new arena was proposed by Colonel S.L. Penhorwood, Harry Sargeant, W.J. Thompson and R.H. Knight, and on January 6, 1913, the new Gouin Street Arena opened its doors to the public. About 600 skaters and spectators filled the skating rink. The arena not only had an ice rink for skating and Hockey, it also featured a curling rink in an adjacent ice surface making it a dual purpose arena.

The rinks were a naturally frozen ice surface.

On January 10, 1913 the Hockey team from Sault Michigan, USA came to play a exhibition Hockey game against the local Sault Ste. Marie team in the first indoor Hockey game in the new arena.

During the First and Second World Wars, the arena was used as a barracks to house American and Canadian soldiers that were stationed here to guard the locks and canal system.

The arena finally burned down for good on July 3, 1965. It was being used by both the T. Eaton Company Ltd. and Stedman’s as a warehouse to store merchandise for their respective stores, which helped increase the fire size. Everything was destroyed.

The curling rink was being used by the Soo Curlers Association, who after the fire dug through the debris to find their valuable granite curling rocks, approximately 100 of them.