Last Word

Frozen In Time

Kimball Union has a long tradition of taking advantage of a cold climate. Between the boys and girls varsity hockey teams, KUA has clocked close to 125 competitive, interscholastic seasons of hockey since the sport’s arrival on The Hilltop in 1935. By then, skating on Chellis Pond had already been a longstanding winter activity. The first hockey rink with sideboards was constructed atop Chellis Pond for the inaugural hockey season by faculty member Wayland Porter, who used lumber recovered from the old Bird Village Inn. Today, that ice is still used for skating, Winter Carnival, and the polar plunge.

In 1944, the school built an outdoor rink toward the top of the hill, nestled along the northwest side of Alumni Gymnasium’s current site, before moving it for the 1950-51 season to a field adjacent to Chellis Dormitory. This was KUA hockey’s home for the next 38 years, except for the 1962 season, when the construction of a Quonset-style metal roof funded by Annie Duncan was underway. The outdoor rink was officially named Duncan Rink (and unofficially, “the Quonset Hut”). Hockey moved indoors in 1988 with the dedication of Akerstrom Arena. An outdoor rink remains busy just a puck’s toss away from the original location of Duncan Rink. Known to current students as the “ODR,” it’s where on any winter afternoon you can find groups of students skating, shooting pucks, curling frozen milk jugs, or just sliding around on ice. K