Stratford Warriors
Rink: William Allman Memorial Arena
Capacity: 2,800
Built: 1924
League: GOHL
City: Stratford, Ontario
Home Of: Stratford Warriors
Games Attended: 1
Only Game: February 7, 2026 vs Waterloo
Unique Arena: #119
GOHL Arena: #6
The originally named Stratford Arena was built just over a century ago, in 1924, on the banks of the small Lake Victoria in the heart of Stratford, Ontario. For over 50 years Bill Allman was the arena’s main caretaker, and the rink was renamed in his honour when he passed away in 1996. The front facade and main lobby of the arena are newer additions added some time over the decades. When inside you can easily tell where the cutoff is with the newer brick work. The main lobby is a nice wide open space that has the ticket booths, which I was extremely thankful were inside during my visit on a -20 degree February evening. One end of the lobby has a large concession stand, while the other end has a small team souvenir kiosk. In between are plenty of trophy and memorabilia cases as well as 50/50 and chuck a puck raffles. Above this lobby area on the second floor sits a banquet hall space that wasn’t being used during the Warriors game we attended. The stairway and elevator that brings you up to that area also leads you to the concourse of the spectator bowl, or you can enter the bowl from ice level, passing through doors from the lobby that was on the original western exterior wall of the arena. There is a small corridor with a much lower ceiling and benches that also have small porthole openings to the first row behind one of the nets.
While the main lobby is quaint but obviously a bit more modern, the moment you enter the arena bowl, you are taken back in time where very little has changed since the arena opened in 1924. There are about 8 rows of wooden two-man bench seats all the way around the rink. In the 2000’s when some renovations were taking place, the city had the option to replace these two-man benches with modern molded plastic seats. The citizens of Stratford flatly rejected this idea, wanting to keep the arena as close to original as possible. So the original 1924 seats were removed, sanded and repainted before being reinstalled. The seats are also at a nice steep pitch which gives most of the seats a spectacular view of the ice. There are some support beams down the sides, but they block the view of very few seats. The walkway around the top of the seating bowl is quite narrow down the sides, but opens up nicely in the corners. The floor of this walkway is all original beautiful hardwood flooring which I’ve only ever also seen at the old Coliseum in Prince George. The back row of seats is a straight 90-degree piece of hard wood that certainly would give you perfect posture or reshape your bones trying.
The roof above the seating in the ends is a bit low, but it opens up for the rest of the building in a beautiful barn-like arch that is almost an exact replica of Windsor Arena. The rink really is just a smaller Windsor Arena, but also really reminds me of the Jack Gatecliff Arena in St. Catharines. The first row of seats is a bit elevated off the floor, with your feet sitting about two thirds of the way up the boards. They seem to be still wood based off the sounds the puck or bodies made when bouncing off them during the game. Like a lot of old barns, the benches are on opposite sides of the ice, while the surface itself is 10 feet shorter than the modern-day standard of 200 feet. While most arenas that are shorter than 200 feet seem to take that space out of the neutral zone, in Stratford it’s pretty clear the 10 feet is lost from the attacking zones, as the blue line appears to be much closer to the top of each circle. There is also a classic gondola-style press box hanging in the rafters on one side of the ice.
The atmosphere for the Warriors game I attended in February 2026 was a bit muted. While some were very into the game itself it seemed most of the announced attendance of 781 were families with their kids playing in the 1st intermission Timbits games who were there to socialize with others. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It felt like a community coming together on a Saturday night to watch their kids and the big team play as a backdrop to catching up on the previous week. I would suspect being here during the playoffs may give the crowd a bit more of an edge, but they were certainly a knowledgeable bunch.
Most of my travels to Jr A & B hockey in Ontario have been fun but most of the arenas are ones I don’t feel the need to return to for another game. Stratford however is one I could see myself going back to at some point, maybe more so during the playoffs. When I leave arenas I tend to take one last long look if I feel like I may never come back, especially on very long road trips to places like Prince George or Baie-Comeau. While I did take one last look at the William Allman Memorial Arena before leaving, it wasn’t because I felt I wouldn’t be back again. No, I wanted to look one more time because of how awesome it was. I loved the place, and if you are into old arenas, you owe it to yourself to go here at least once. Thankfully, despite the rink now being past its 100th birthday it shows no signs of closing anytime soon.
