Filmmaker Commemorates Civic Centre

Nick Murray

Brian Stockton, a Regina-based film maker, has just released a short film about the old Moose Jaw Civic Centre, other wise known as "The Crushed Can".

The film is just a short piece, meant to commemorate the arena.

"I was always a huge fan of the Civic Centre" Stockton said, referring to his childhood. "I'd always remembered seeing it when we visited Moose Jaw, It was pretty striking."

As an adult, Stockton took more of an interest in architecture, that's how he learned about Joseph Pettick. 

"I went to Grant Road School as a kid, but it wasn't until I was forty that I happened to read the plaque and found out it was designed by Joseph Pettick. I had heard that name before, so I looked into him and found out he'd done all these landmark buildings that were a big part of my life."

Pettick was a famous Saskatchewan architect. He made about five hundred buildings in Saskatchewan. Some of those buildings include the Regina Bank of Montreal, the SaskPower building, City Hall, the SGI Tower, and, of course, the Civic Centre in Moose Jaw. 

Stockton interviewed him for a previous film he did called The Man Who Built My Childhood.

"I used some of the footage from the previous film in creating this one" He said.

The film is titled Moose Jaw Civic Centre 1959-2012, and it consists of an interview he did with Pettick about the creation of the building.

"It was built on a shoestring" Pettick says, in the video, "we couldn't even put insulation on the heating pipes, the heat from the pipes radiated into the stands. It was completed in '59, began in '57."

The presentation of the building and how it was built are of great interest to Stockton. "It was such an unusual building, for such a small budget," he said.

Joseph Pettick passed away in 2010, the Civic Centre closed the year after and was ultimately demolished in 2012.

Stockton, most recently, released a film in 2015 called "The Sabbatical"

You can watch his film on the Civic Centre right here: