2026 - should Calgary bid?

[spuzzum]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Both EU countries which, from what I understand, makes border crossing non-existent. Also, neither of them have their terrorism meter at "threat level midnight" like the U.S. does.

That is correct. There is no border crossing, only a little blue sign that says the country you entered. Several highways drop the speed limit from 130km/h to 100km/h or 80km/h. Slovakia is quite the distance from Poland. Strange concept.

[OffsideSpecialist]

Originally Posted by spuzzum

That is correct. There is no border crossing, only a little blue sign that says the country you entered. Several highways drop the speed limit from 130km/h to 100km/h or 80km/h. Slovakia is quite the distance from Poland. Strange concept.

According to Google, it takes 3.5 to drive from Krakow to Jasna. That is not too unreasonable as I believe some of the water events in 1976 were held in Kingston, which Google has as a 3 hour drive from Montreal.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Lil Pedro

St. Louis and Squaw Valley have also hosted in the US

I don't know if I would consider the 1904 Olympics. I can't imagine that tug-of-war competitions cost much to put on.

[Hack&Lube]

Perhaps this will be controversial but If we host in 2026 or later, my only hope is that we stop bringing in the cowboy themes into the overall presentation and the city finds a different or more modern angle for it's image.



It would be interesting to me if to avoid the repeat syndrome, we bid for the games as Banff instead of Calgary. Of course, appropriate events would still take place in Calgary but maybe this could encourage some new infrastructure/developments to occur in the Banff town. Haven't several of the past Winter Games been billed as small European skiing towns and not major cities?

[flamesfan1297]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

I don't know if I would consider the 1904 Olympics. I can't imagine that tug-of-war competitions cost much to put on.

Dude, do you know how thick those ropes are? They can not be cheap.

[Northendzone]

I would be less keen on an Olympic plan that included much in the way of development in banff.....once you start with building more infrastructure there there is not turning it back into wilderness.

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't know if they would be feasible, this isn't 1988 anymore. The Sochi games were over $50 billion dollars. While I don't think that the next Winters will cost nearly that much. Vancouver was still nearly $2 billion I think Calgary's Olympics in 1988 came in at 800 million of something like that.

As much as we like to think that we have the facilities for it, there would need to be major construction programs and lodging build again.

I would love to see the Olympics back here again, but I think that by the time we bid again it will be something that will be financially out of our reach.

[nik-]

It seems that Lillehammer was the last "quaint little games", so yeah it would cost much more. We would need two arenas with around 8000 capacity for figure skating, short track and alternate hockey games. The Flames new arena would probably be about 8 years old at that point, so that would obviously be fine. The Nordic facilities at Canmore would probably be fine, and obviously we have the Alpine options.

COP no longer cuts it, so we'd need new jumping facilities and likely a new bobsled/Luge track.

The Oval is still a really respected ice surface, but they'd might want to retrofit the spectator area .. and who knows how it will be in 12 years. The place looks really dated though.

McMahon is embarrassing obviously.

Hidy and Howdy return or I'm kidnapping the Bid Committee.

I think we're lucky in terms of infrastructure, and I think Calgary could do it on the relative cheap. Comparative to Vancouver, accounting for inflation and way less than Sochi.

[Tyler]

I wonder what a week's worth of weather like today (-25C) would do to the outdoor events and the overall impression on Calgary?

I think we got super lucky with a Chinook in '88 and the weather was absolutely ideal.

[nik-]

This year is very out of the norm, with large stretches of days 10 degrees below the historical average low. The chinook in 88 was insane weather, but so is this.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Perhaps this will be controversial but If we host in 2026 or later, my only hope is that we stop bringing in the cowboy themes into the overall presentation and the city finds a different or more modern angle for it's image.



It would be interesting to me if to avoid the repeat syndrome, we bid for the games as Banff instead of Calgary. Of course, appropriate events would still take place in Calgary but maybe this could encourage some new infrastructure/developments to occur in the Banff town. Haven't several of the past Winter Games been billed as small European skiing towns and not major cities?

The whining about the "Western" them stuff sometimes gets crazy in here. You just posted an image from 1988, then declared you hope they go with something more modern. Fair enough, and fair enough if you don't like western angle, but it is this cities past, and if we host the Olympics again, it will be part of the angle, because that what happens at Olympics, the host cities and nations put their culture and history on display. Vancouver had lumberjacks running around, I highly doubt folks in Vancouver are worried that everyone thinks all that goes on in Vancouver is some tree cutting.

I too hope they don't recycle the 1988 uniforms or go with tassels................but it's a pretty safe bet they wouldn't. Sochi just hosted a very modern games, and still managed to incorporate their countries history. There was a giant Russian doll on the slope style course.................... in Calgary you might have to deal with that being a giant horse or a bull.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Perhaps this will be controversial but If we host in 2026 or later, my only hope is that we stop bringing in the cowboy themes into the overall presentation and the city finds a different or more modern angle for it's image.



It would be interesting to me if to avoid the repeat syndrome, we bid for the games as Banff instead of Calgary. Of course, appropriate events would still take place in Calgary but maybe this could encourage some new infrastructure/developments to occur in the Banff town. Haven't several of the past Winter Games been billed as small European skiing towns and not major cities?

Western is part of our history, this was a frontier town and as old west as it gets. We also celebrate that with one of the largest rodeos in the world.

I guess I would wonder what people want. Dancers in buttless chaps riding around on horses smeared with mustard while Lady Gaga screams while being suspended from the Calgary Tower, dressed in a rapidly melting Ice Negligee?

Meanwhile a steam roller runs over a bunny there to symbolize the one% wolf in bunny clothing.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by nik-

COP no longer cuts it, so we'd need new jumping facilities and likely a new bobsled/Luge track.

The only reason you'd need a new sliding track is if they feel the need to 'up the ante'. Sure the COP track is one of the easier ones nowadays, but it is still usable.

However building a second could be cool (the old one could be the Leuders Track, the new one the Humphries Track) and potentially even use both in the Olympics (old for runs 1 and 2, new for runs 3 and 4 and team events) to really shake things up.

COP would also be suitable for all the freestyle events. The ski jumps may be obsolete (at least the large hill) and their landing area would need to be the viewing area for the moguls and aerials, but there's a lot more events that will be held there than at the last Olympics even if you take away ski jumping and nordic combined (and ski ballet).

Moguls, Slopestyle (Ski and Snowboard), Halfpipe (Ski and Snowboard), Aerials, Bobsleigh, Luge, Skeleton, Low Profile Hockey Games. Not too shabby.

The Oval is still a really respected ice surface, but they'd might want to retrofit the spectator area .. and who knows how it will be in 12 years. The place looks really dated though.

Would need a facelift sure, but it's still one of the two best in the world and will be for the forseeable future.

McMahon is embarrassing obviously.

Yeah, hopefully we have a pretty sweet stadium by then near downtown. It was ugly back then, is just unacceptable now.

Hidy and Howdy return or I'm kidnapping the Bid Committee.

I'll gladly be your accomplice.

I think we're lucky in terms of infrastructure, and I think Calgary could do it on the relative cheap. Comparative to Vancouver, accounting for inflation and way less than Sochi.

Screw that, we're getting our vanity projects and all the glorious federal money that comes with them. High speed rail to the airport? Absolutely. Train to COP? Yes please. Do any of them have to be practical, affordable or even make sense? Of course not, its for the Olympics!



Also the Saddledome would need to be maintained until then to have two large arenas (new Flames for hockey, the Dome for figure skating and short track).

[CliffFletcher]

It's worth noting that 2022 Winter Olympics proposals for Germany and Switzerland have been rejected by voters worried about costs, and Sweden also pulled out because of the cost. Oven in oil-rich Norway, over half of voters are opposed to hosting the Games. And these are affluent countries with very strong winter sports traditions.

Given the state of government finances in most Western democracies, if left to voters, I see few of those countries willing to take on Olympics going forward. Instead, they'll be hosted by autocracies like Russia, China, and Kazakhstan, or non-Western countries who want to show they've arrived, like South Korea and Brazil.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

.....

COP would also be suitable for all the freestyle events. The ski jumps may be obsolete (at least the large hill) and their landing area would need to be the viewing area for the moguls and aerials, but there's a lot more events that will be held there than at the last Olympics even if you take away ski jumping and nordic combined (and ski ballet).

.....

Fata me! I forgot about ski ballet!

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/eh-...145119421.html

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

It's worth noting that 2022 Winter Olympics proposals for Germany and Switzerland have been rejected by voters worried about costs, and Sweden also pulled out because of the cost. Oven in oil-rich Norway, over half of voters are opposed to hosting the Games. And these are affluent countries with very strong winter sports traditions.

Given the state of government finances in most Western democracies, if left to voters, I see few of those countries willing to take on Olympics going forward. Instead, they'll be hosted by autocracies like Russia, China, and Kazakhstan, or non-Western countries who want to show they've arrived, like South Korea and Brazil.

Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway are very small countries compared to the average nation that's hosted an Olympics in the last few decades, it would be very hard for them to do it and not go into debt. Germany could easily, but with how weak the EU economy is right now with them being really the only thing keeping it from collapsing I can see their hesitation

[craigwd]

I was talking with Frank King and a few others last year and the topic of another bid came up. King believed that Calgary openly bidding and winning another Olympic Games was very unlikely. I think his reasoning was that there was a desire to spread them out more.

He did say that if there was an emergency and the IOC needed to quickly transfer the host city, Calgary would be near the top of the list.

[Envitro]

Who is Frank King?

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Envitro

Who is Frank King?

Head of Calgary's organizing committee for 88.

Wrote a very interesting book of the bidding and hosting experience called "It's how you play the game".

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Envitro

Who is Frank King?

He helped bring the 88 Olympics to Calgary, I think.