A night before the big day, there was a problem.
It was a Thursday in November 1967, and the ice rink at the Belmont Complex was opening for skating sessions the next day.
Everything was in place -- except the ice. Hugo Montebell's machinery had broken down, remembered Jon Spangler. But that didn't stop the determined Montebell.
"We were making ice with garden hoses," Spangler said with a laugh.
The rink opened as planned, he said, and the complex celebrated 40 years of ice last month with skate rental prices that rival those in the 1970s. It was the creation of Montebell, who owned and ran the complex.
His idea for the ice rink came a few years earlier, said Gary Montebell. his son and manager of the complex. When the temperatures were too cold for swimming, Hugo Montebell would shovel the snow off of the Belmont's pool, Gary said, and allow skaters on the frozen water.
"Dad's like, 'This is great,' " he said.
Anne Montebell remembered when her late husband told her he wanted to install an ice rink.
"I said 'You gotta be kidding,' " she recalled.
Hugo went ahead with the plans and told his wife not to worry, she said, even though he didn't know anything about hockey.
"He put it in because he said hockey was the sport of tomorrow," Anne Montebell said.
Hugo Montebell might have been right, but first he needed someone who knew about hockey.
The Belmont's beginning
Spangler was an employee at a telephone company at the time and was working with Montebell to set up phone service at the complex. During visits to the complex, the then-31-year-old Spangler talked hockey with Montebell.
"The longer we talked, the more I could see that he needed help," Spangler said. "By the time I left that day, I was in charge of starting the hockey program."
The rink soon attracted boys for the hockey programs and skaters for the public sessions. Spangler was the first coach of the amateur league and the high school team.
Many of the men who got involved in the rink's beginning are still playing in an adult league or coaching at the Belmont.
"He opened the arena with a lot of promise," Spangler said.
The start of a lifetime interest
Growing up, Lloyd Cravener played street hockey with some older boys that lived in his Kittanning neighborhood. Finally, a neighbor asked him to play ice hockey, Cravener said. His dad, a former hockey player, gave the OK, and Cravener joined the league at the Belmont.
Cravener played for the Belmont's amateur and high school programs. He also played hockey at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the Belmont was his home ice. He coaches a pee-wee team at the Belmont now.
"I just love the sport and love to coach," he said.
But he and many others might not have had an opportunity to develop an affinity for hockey had it not been for the ice rink. Cravener remembered skating at the Belmont most days during the week either for hockey practice or during public sessions.
"I made a lot of friends," he said.
Gary Montebell's introduction to the ice also turned into a lifetime interest.
"I remember skating a lot," he said.
"It was a lot of work," he remembered. "We also had a lot of fun and met a lot of people from the area."
The rink used to be two sheets of ice for different activities, Gary Montebell said, but is now National Hockey League-regulation sized.
The rink's growth
Public skating session attendance has increased more than 20 percent since 2005, he said. The rink has seen success because "there isn't much else to do" during the winter months, Montebell said, and because of the hockey leagues for boys and girls.
An increasing interest in hockey led many to the Belmont when it opened, Montebell said. The ice rink was one of four in Southwestern Pennsylvania in the 1960s.
"Hockey as a sport has grown, but the biggest growth now is the girls' side of it," he said.
The recreational opportunity the Belmont ice rink provided sticks in the mind of those who knew Hugo Montebell. He died in 1980.
"Without him, none of this would've happened," Spangler said.
Nowhere in the rink is a mention of Hugo Montebell's part in creating the recreational area, and Spangler said that is important.
He described Hugo Montebell as a burly man who always dressed in black.
"He had one thing in mind, and that was to make this (ice rink) work," Spangler said. "His persistence and his determination were contagious."
Hugo Montebell was the type of person who would let a child skate even if they didn't have enough money for admission, Anne Montebell said.
"He was a man who loved people," she said.
"What a handshake," Cravener remembered about Hugo Montebell. "His hand just engulfed yours."
The rink has proven to be an asset to the community during the past 40 years and it all started with a man who wanted local children to have recreational opportunities.
"The thing with Hugo, he would give you the shirt off his back," Cravener said. "He just wanted kids on the ice."
