Fraser's five-rink ice palace, now named after a burger

On a winter Saturday, the parking lot off Utica Road in Fraser fills with minivans before sunrise. In the back sit kids hauling hockey bags bigger than they are. Inside sits one of the larger ice complexes in the state: five separate ice surfaces under one roof. They run open skating, figure skating, drop-in hockey, and leagues from before dawn until late at night. For a small Macomb County city, it’s an outsized engine of youth hockey. It hosts tournaments, ice shows, college and pro games, even Red Wing alumni matches.

The place has worn three identities. Its rinks were once each named for a Great Lake — Michigan, Huron, Ontario, Erie, Superior. So you could tell someone to meet you “on Superior” and they’d know which sheet. In 2013 it became Fraser Hockeyland under a Coca-Cola deal that renamed the rinks again. A few years ago it became Big Boy Arena, tied to the Michigan-born burger chain. That’s how a hockey barn ended up named after a restaurant whose mascot holds a double-decker over his head.

The building has a stranger past than its bag-toting clientele suggests. Back in the 1970s, before it was wall-to-wall ice, the complex booked rock shows. In 1974 a young band called KISS played here. So did Michigan’s own Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. These days the only roar is a Zamboni and a few hundred parents in the stands. Breath fogging in the cold, they watch eight-year-olds chase a puck across one of five identical white rectangles.