Quote:
Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus
This whole thing reeks plain and simple. The fact Nenshi is playing coy on the whole thing with an Olympic bid circling in the mist is enough evidence for me that the public is being kept entirely in the dark by both parties. I will be completely shocked if we don't hear the city is releasing an official bid in a few months and Calgary Next has been re-hashed as part of that plan.
It will be really sad considering the state of the economy but the Flames are going to be gifted another facility on the back of another Olympic games.
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I can say with absolute certainty (you can believe me if you like, I don't care) that CalgaryNEXT and any notion of bidding for an Olympics were developed completely independently of one another. Now as the Mayor said, it is "happy coincidence" that the two ideas at a high level could be mutually supportive, but that has very little to do with CalgaryNEXT as it stands now. Facilities such as a new arena, renovated or new stadium, and even a new fieldhouse could be important pieces to the puzzle, but that could easily be accomplished with Plan B too.
As a bit of a tidbit, there were very nearly efforts to go after 2022, after several people involved in the 1988 bid tried to convince City officials that we would have a very good shot based on the lukewarm response of the European frontrunning cities. They turned out to be right as favourites such as Oslo, Munich and others quickly dropped out. We might have won by default had we really gone for it, but there just wasn't enough time to discuss with the public, prepare a preliminary analysis and navigate COC. And then things like the flood happened and the idea died for 2022, but 2026 was still thought of as a prime target.