Family Day became community day on the outdoor rink at the Boyle Community Centre in the Old East Village on Monday afternoon.
It all came together after the Old East Village Community Association challenged the Old South Community Organization (OSCO) to a little game of four-on-four shinny.
The outdoor rink became an instant success after it was set up in December, drawing kids from around the neighbourhood, and the event hoped to further boost the community spirit.
Gary Brown of the OSCO says "When Old East started building the rink, we were thinking it would be a great idea to have a community challenge between the two communities to raise some awareness, just talk about the things we do, and what better day to do it than Family Day."
Old South and Old East are among the two most active and involved community organizations in the City of London, and different age groups took to the ice all afternoon for a little fun.
Madison Da Silva spent some time on the ice and says "I think it's pretty cool and then we all kind of get to be friends."
Oliver Godbout was one of the driving forces behind the building of the Boyle rink and says he's gratified to see it being put to such good use.
"It's huge, you know I feel great today after all our hard work. There's probably 10 of us that have really helped out really hard on this rink and it's been phenomenal."
And while Monday's games between the OSCO AbNormals and the Beasts of the East came together on short notice, there is hope it will become an annual event, with Old South's Normal School a possible location for 2015.
"We're hoping this to be an annual event. This is our first time we're doing it and I think we're going to start challenging some other communities to come out and get involved and we can all benefit from working together," Brown says.
He also hopes events like this one will help remind residents about the good work being done by community organizations, and encourage people to get involved.
