IIRC, for the Vancouver Olympics, there were articles that highlighted some issues with our training facilities. Our facilities are getting dated and I believe some North American athletes were saying they might not be able to or want to train in Calgary any longer.
I recall SAIT getting recognition for building training luge boards (term?) as apparently there was a world wide Luge board shortage? Mount Royal upped their sports training programs etc. during that Olympics too. Bads? More people here may mean more crowds in our beautiful back yards even after the Olympics. Cost, no need to keep going, others have already chimed in. Canmore might not be the same nice and quiet alternative to Banff long run. Traffic? I personally think this would be a wash. Airport to West has Stony Trail which isn't generally congested, though the Stony to TransCanada perhaps could use a minor tweak. Downtown disruption IMO wouldn't be much worse than the Stampede.
State of the art facilities would attract athletes from around the world, perhaps not just for winter sports. Tourism may increase long term as well. Ironically, I've always hated the idea of trying to quantify long term benefits, but there seriously is a huge argument for it here.
Does Calgary need the Olympics? no. Would it be nice? Yes.
Would it cost a lot? Sure. But I don't think we would lose huge amount of money and the city wouldn't be a ruin in the end either.
If anything, I could see the city benefiting from great improvements across the board. If anything, additional provincial and federal funding aiding things like infrastructure and "wants" would free up more future provincial and municipal funds for the things like schools and hospitals that were mentioned earlier. But that's just my opinion. Anyone is free to disagree.
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