Shea's Amphitheatre

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Shea's Amphitheatre

Shea's Amphitheatre, also known as the Winnipeg Amphitheatre, was an indoor arena located in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The amphitheatre was situated on the north-east corner of Whitehall Avenue and Colony Street, some distance west of Osborne Street. Whitehall Avenue no longer exists today. It used to connect Colony with Osborne, running parallel to Mostyn Place, and aligned more or less in a straight line with today's Sara Avenue (which itself is a relatively recent renaming of the easternmost stretch of Preston).

At the north end of the amphitheatre was another street that no longer exists today: Brydges Avenue. Like Whitehall, Brydges also connected Colony with Osborne, and ran parallel to Mostyn Place and Whitehall. The Laurel Court Apartments were at the east end of Brydges, at Osborne.

On the north side of Brydges Avenue, between Brydges and Broadway, was Shea's brewery. James Dunwoody writes: "So, I set up some squadron headquarters in a skating rink just behind Shea’s brewery..." [1]. Sharon Melnicer writes: "On the northeast corner was education, the site of Manitoba's Normal school; on the southwest sat damnation, in the shape of Shea's Brewery. Salvation could be found on the northwest corner inside the walls of the All Saints Anglican Church, and on the fourth or southeast corner towered the legislative building. Among these formidable institutions nestled Sam's British Tailors." [2].

Further south, between Mostyn Place and the Assiniboine River, was the new (second) home of the Granite Curling Club. Archives of the Manitoba Telephone System (MTS) record of the Granite Curling Club that: "...from the east side of the building was open land to Osborne Street because Mostyn Place terminated in front of the new rink. Another street running parallel just north of here, called Whitehall Avenue, had several big houses on its south side, stables and a garage across from the Granite and the city's big Amphitheatre looming across its north side. A massive wooden structure, the Amphitheatre doubled as the arena for summer horse shows and an exhibition hall, and as an indoor skating rink in the winter. Somewhat later, the property that is now the older Great West Life Building was for decades the Winnipeg Stadium, until the second stadium in St. James was built in the mid-1950s. The area, therefore, formed a disjointed sports complex, with good access to the street-car lines and considerable public profile..." [3]. This same web page also includes a photo of Shea's Amphitheatre: "Plate 4 – Taken from the top of the Legislative Building, this shot shows the roof of the Granite on the far left and the massive Winnipeg Amphitheatre on the right, 1926. (Courtesy of the Provincial Archives of Manitoba, Thomas Burns Collection #612.)"

Constructed in 1909, the Amphitheatre was for a time the only artificial ice surface between Toronto and Vancouver. It hosted the Memorial Cup tournament numerous times, the last of which was in 1953. It was also the site, every summer, of the Shrine Circus. The Amphitheatre was made redundant by the construction of the Winnipeg Arena in 1955, and was demolished that summer after hosting its last event on May 31. The artificial ice plant was purchased by the owners of the Winnipeg Warriors (minor pro) and relocated to Winnipeg's Olympic Rink. The headquarters of The Great-West Life Assurance Company currently occupy the site.