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My vote goes to St. Mary's Point.

Old rink in Cloquet; when it is -10 degrees outside, it's -15 inside.

Southern Minnesota coldest? Might be Fairmont

Did anyone get the pleasure of having to play in the Gilbert bubble? It was like a little Metrodome with the forced air keeping it up. We could not keep our waterbottles from freezing up. By far the coldest arena ever!

The Inver Grove Heights "Bubble" arena in the 80's, was so stinking cold you couldn't wait to get outside even if it was sub zero. The ice was so hard it was hard to dig your skates in enough to stop, but it was fast !! It was also all white and they had these ridiculous bright lights that shined upward and reflected off the white roof and made it almost too bright where you had to squint. All in all though it was a unique experience I am glad to have had playing in there. It's actually still around, its over at the Tartan arena now, my son was fortunate or unfortunate enough depending on how you look at it to have played a few games in there when he was a bantam. Good times

Cloquet's arena gets my vote. I still remember playing there for a tournament in squirts and my body not warming up until about the second period.

wayfncold wrote:Did anyone get the pleasure of having to play in the Gilbert bubble? It was like a little Metrodome with the forced air keeping it up. We could not keep our waterbottles from freezing up. By far the coldest arena ever!

That place definitely gets my vote for the coldest.

Sats81 wrote:The old shakopee "bubble" which I believe was torn down in the late 80s or early 90s was ridiculously cold! Not sure if anyone on here recalls that place? Also Harding Arena in east St. Paul is pretty brutal.

That was an igloo, so was the Tonka bubble.

Minnehaha has permafrost on it's walls older than Sid Hartman.
Sauk Rapids in the 90's, when they still had a gas powered Zamboni and a giant exhaust fan by the scoreboard was a beauty.

Out State - Fryberger
Twin Cities - Minnehaha

Top 3 no particular order. Fryberger, Hibbing Fairgrounds and TRF rink downtown.

Hodgins-Berrardo is the coldest I've played in. Chisholm is the warmest, felt like 70 in there and it was like skating on wax.

Pine City

Literally snowmobile parking at the rink... they wear their full gear into the rink.

winding river park, Toms River NJ

basically an outdoor rink with no walls but has a cathedral overhead to
"protect" you from snow and rain

I think bubbles get the best consideration. My vote was for the old Minnetonka Bubble, which I think was replaced by Rink 2 in 1989. I don't think it was ever over 0 degrees in the place.

Others:
-Fryberger (as mentioned)
-Minnehaha
-Old Highland Arena (before the new one)
-Biff Adams (or any of the St. Paul arenas)
-Alexandria (not the big rink)

A lot of them seem to be 2nd rinks or smaller rinks.

Osseo West was/is very cold, especially back in the 80's. Their bubble in the late 80's was even worse. I remember going there to play and even the haystacks that were along the edges of the bubble (what were those for, anyway?) were full of ice.

Roseau rink 2 is always frigid. Minnehaha in the metro was a good add as it always seemed you needed to go outside to warm-up. Other old rinks back in the day were the bubbles in Minnetonka or I think IGH. No heat in those plastic baggies.

Not one of your traditional answers, but I always thought "The Deuce" at Columbia arena was always ridiculously cold.

The converted rodeo barn in Windom is colder than any rink I've been in.

Kerry Park arena in International Falls before they put artificial ice in.

That old arena in Baudette in the 70's gets my vote.

Coldest I played in was Shoreview and Oscar Johnson.

Coldest attending game was FREEZEBURGER. Two years in a row they scheduled the WBL Bantam team at 7AM in that ice house.....

CherryPicker99 wrote:The converted rodeo barn in Windom is colder than any rink I've been in.

Does it still have chicken wire?

UpNorthMom wrote:Gotta be the Old Arena in TRF.

How does the Old Crookston Barn stack up for coldest? I remember that rink being the only one my son ever left in tears with practically frozen toes.

RRubberbeeskit wrote:

UpNorthMom wrote:Gotta be the Old Arena in TRF.

How does the Old Crookston Barn stack up for coldest? I remember that rink being the only one my son ever left in tears with practically frozen toes.

I remember playing there when I was younger and it was definitely one of the coldest I can remember. Glad they got rid of it now though cause their new complex is extremely nice

Harding arena in St. Paul is nippy. Old rink in Roseau. That crazy little rink in Fargo (SunMart?) by the train tracks with all the religious stuff on the walls.
MacDonald arena on the old McGill campus in Montreal. Numerous rinks in northern Canada... One in Elliot Lake sticks out, as does another in New Sarepta, just outside of Edmonton.

BTW, I was recently at Minnehaha and Harding on the same very cold night. Harding was much colder, though the smallish lobby in front was quite warm.

I guess the bottom line here is that are (or were) dozens of freezing indoor places to play hockey in Minne-so-cold. And because peoples' experiences are all different, and memories and recollections vary to such a degree, there can be no definite "winner" if you want to call it that!