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Many among the 200 residents of Lang, Sask., have spent their lifetime in the shadow of the province’s most famous exports. There is a grain elevator on the edge of town, with the former filming location for “Corner Gas” just up the road in Rouleau, which is less than an hour from where the beloved Roughriders play, in Regina.

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In late January, a series of short videos posted to social media drew an international spotlight to the tiny prairie town. Suddenly, television cameras from CTV, the CBC and Global were pointing into Lang, all asking the same question: What exactly is that drawbridge doing in the local skating rink, anyway?

Mike Saip, the village mayor, could not say for sure. Neither could Ray Beck, whose father used to tell stories about the night it opened more than 90 years ago. Rustie Sobchuk loves the place so much she used it as a backdrop for her engagement photos, and she can see why outsiders might be so curious.

“It’s quite magical,” she said. “And it’s very charming.”

The Lang Community Skating Rink was built in 1928 — only two decades after the town was founded — and is held together by the strength of local volunteers. It has a natural ice surface, with an old-fashioned, hand-drawn ice resurfacer, and a catwalk where fans stand to watch the action below.

Its two long dressing rooms are in the attic, which lead out to what has become the rink’s most famous feature: A drawbridge that lowers players down from the ceiling to the ice below.

Video of an adult recreational player nearly tumbling down the wooden steps went viral last month, as did another of U9 players making tentative movement down from the rafters. Some locals say there is never a danger of falling so long as you grip the rope railing on your way down.

Looks like everyone loves the stairs! Our assistant coach got video of the kids heading down the drawbridge. pic.twitter.com/beNbSiT7Hc

— Braden Konschuh (@the_konch) January 29, 2023

“If we had a permanent camera up there, you wouldn’t believe the amount of people who have bit it going down those stairs,” Sobchuk said with a laugh. “It’s amazing.”

An unwritten rule of playing beer league in Lang is that the losing team has to scrape the ice after the game. A half-dozen players grab the scrapers and shovel the surface snow toward the window, where the shavings are shoveled out into the cold prairie air.

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Once that task is complete, the rink custodian can begin to resurface the sheet. There is no space for a motorized ice resurfacer in the building, so the warm water is carried in a 45-gallon drum mounted on wheels, then spread across the ice with a long terrycloth.

Beck, 70, was enshrined in the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008, and was part of a senior hockey team that played out of the Lang rink.

“We would play a new team in provincial play, and we would let that drawbridge down when they were coming in,” he said. “We always figured it was a two-goal advantage for the home team, because they knew they had to get on the ice.”

Lang, Saskatchewan has gone viral for their unique player entrance. What was the most unique thing about your small town rink? pic.twitter.com/GQf9TxzqB9

— The Green Zone (@GreenZoneSK) January 31, 2023

If a player was ever thrown out of a game, Beck said play would be stopped, and the drawbridge would be lowered. A linesman would escort the player to the bottom step, then ensure the stairs were pulled back into the rafters so the game could resume.

There is also only one penalty box in the rink. If players were sent off for fighting — which Beck said could happen during some of the more heated senior games — they would have to serve them side-by-side in the box. (“We made sure we had bigger individuals who worked the time box, who could step in and break things up if that happened,” said Beck.)

“At one time, the rink was the heartbeat of the community in the wintertime,” said Beck. “Things have changed a little bit, with so many other activities, and so much on television and the internet. People don’t tend to use it as much as they should.

“But for a guy like me, who grew up in here, it’s a very important part of the history of Lang. We’ve worked fairly hard at keeping it up.”

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There used to be a curling rink next door, he said, but it fell into disrepair. When the roof was damaged during a storm just before the turn of the century, the villagers made the decision to pull the rink down, which helped focus their limited resources on the skating rink.

“It’s really important for us to have this particular building,” said Beck. “Because we know, if we lose this rink, we’re not going to be big enough to build another one.”

From the outside, the rink looks like it could be another rural storage building. There are no signs that highlight its history.

How the catwalk is supposed to work. @spittinchiclets #Saskatchewan #Lang
Fundraiser for the ol barn

*Lang Rink Fundraiser*https://t.co/4dpi59bBRj pic.twitter.com/MHg8nEq8fP

— Mike Williams (@williams55mike) February 1, 2023

Braden Konschuh is director of marketing and communications for the University of Regina’s athletics department. He is also a minor hockey coach whose team of seven-, and eight-year-olds was scheduled to play a game in Lang during a recent tournament.

The dressing rooms at the rink are heated, as is the concession area. The rink itself is not heated, which means if it is minus-22 Celsius outside, it is almost certainly minus-22C inside.

“I wasn’t sure what we were walking into there, but they turned on the lights and it was just gorgeous,” said Konschuh. “You’d think, walking into a rink like that, it might be a little dim. It was so well-lit. The ice was great.”

In the end, only one of the 12 children on his roster needed a reprieve from the cold. He was taken back to a heated space to warm up: “He only missed a couple of shifts, and he was right back out a couple of minutes later.”

Konschuh, who grew up outside the province, took pictures and videos to help him remember his trip.

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“It’s incredibly cool that the centre of the community is an ice rink,” he said. “It’s hard not to feel a little bit romantic about that.”

“As long as I’ve been around,” said Saip, the village mayor, “that rink has been the hub of everything: From curling to the old guys sitting in there playing cards, to the rec hockey to the senior hockey. Our biggest thing is just to kind of keep it here, to keep that going on for generations in the future.”

Sobchuk, who is on the rink’s volunteer management board, said the building needs upgrades. There are old toilets that need replacing. The kitchen — home to the rink’s famous hamburgers (onions are a secret weapon) — also needs an upgrade.

“This is probably the one time Lang Rink has made the news, and it probably will never make the news again,” said Sobchuk. “We’re just trying to encourage people to join us in fundraising to keep the charm. We’re never going to get rid of the stairs. We’re never going to get rid of the barn feel.”

Following all of the international attention online, as well as from legacy media outlets across Canada, a GoFundMe drive has already raised more than $20,000 for the rink.

“We do not have a sign,” Sobchuk said with a laugh. “Hey: That’s what we could use the GoFundMe for.”

(Photo: Courtesy of Rustie Sobchuk)

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