Built in the lead-up to Montreal’s Olympic ambitions, Centre Pierre-Charbonneau has long been more than just a gym with bleachers. Originally opened in 1960 as Centre Maisonneuve, it was designed to serve both police training and public recreation—an early experiment in multi-use space. By the 1960s, it had picked up a second life as a cultural hub, hosting exhibitions and lectures alongside judo classes and volleyball games. It was briefly home to the Olympic Organizing Committee in ’75, and after the Games, renamed for Pierre Charbonneau—the amateur sports advocate who helped bring them here. Since then, the venue has become a community mainstay: a place where local kids train, international roller derby playoffs unfold, and short-lived basketball franchises try their luck. Today, it’s still one of the few spaces in Montreal where aikido, ceramics, and competitive gymnastics might share the same calendar. A true holdout of civic versatility.
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