The sport of ice hockey was taken up by Storhamar IL after the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo spurred the public interest in the sport. The pitch used by the club for summer sports was iced for the winter and surrounded with tall wooden boards. As the club established an ice hockey section in 1955 it received funding from the Norwegian Ice Hockey Federation to purchase tall boards. The pitch was renovated for NOK 4,000 in 1957, financed through a municipal grant. Among the upgrades was insulation of the club house, which was a barracks stemming from the Second World War. A contractor who had a storage facility close by, kept receiving visits from juveniles who jumped the fence and took material for the work. He eventually visited the club house and supplied them with a key to the facility, somewhat involuntarily becoming the club's first sponsor.