[News] UPD: Calgary City Council approves exploratory bid study for 2026 Olympics

[Fire]

Looks like they are planning to use Roger's Place for hockey and CommonWealth stadium for the opening/closing ceremonies. What a joke.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Just like the arena situation, all the best, most meaningful reporting is coming from the Globe and Mail and not from anything local. Wonder why that is.

It's kinda sad how far Calgary's media has fallen. No tough investigative reporting of powerful interests. It's basically small-town boosterism at this point.

[stamps]

Originally Posted by Fire

Looks like they are planning to use Roger's Place for hockey and CommonWealth stadium for the opening/closing ceremonies. What a joke.

I can't believe people could not see this coming ... I have absolutely no interest in sharing the Olympics with Edmonton so they can have the premier events and we get what ?? How does this benefit Calgary ??

[stamps]

I guess we will never get a new arena and stadium ....

[stamps]

As far as I'm concerned they can use all the tax money they plan on using for this Olympics and put it to use towards building a new arena and stadium ...

[Joborule]

I don't see the value in doing in the Olympics if all the events, let alone the main ones, can't be done in the Calgary region.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

It's kinda sad how far Calgary's media has fallen. No tough investigative reporting of powerful interests. It's basically small-town boosterism at this point.

and yet you can't really blame them can you? Nobody wants to pay for good solid journalism anymore...

Meanwhile this has 'crippling financial disaster' written all over it. I wish our city would just walk away.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Fire

Looks like they are planning to use Roger's Place for hockey and CommonWealth stadium for the opening/closing ceremonies. What a joke.

I have no reason to doubt this claim but where was this pointed out? I had a quick scan of the Globe pieces and I never saw that.

It's my understanding from the preliminary reports presented to council that the main hockey venue would be the "proposed yet to be built new arena" followed by the Stampede Corral with a muli-million dollar renovation. The Saddledome would be used for figure skating and other skating style events.

Open and closing ceremonies would be done at Stampede Grandstand venue.

Personally all of this seems lunacy to me regardless.

[The Familia]

If Edmonton has anything to do with this Olympic bid then I vote we pull the plug now. I don’t want to share anything with them! E=NG

[Fire]

Originally Posted by curves2000

I have no reason to doubt this claim but where was this pointed out? I had a quick scan of the Globe pieces and I never saw that.

It's my understanding from the preliminary reports presented to council that the main hockey venue would be the "proposed yet to be built new arena" followed by the Stampede Corral with a muli-million dollar renovation. The Saddledome would be used for figure skating and other skating style events.

Open and closing ceremonies would be done at Stampede Grandstand venue.

Personally all of this seems lunacy to me regardless.

"Staff wants "to specifically explore venues outside of Calgary … in order to reduce the costs of hosting the 2026" Olympics, the supplemental agenda document says."

Why build new facilities in your own city when other cities have them already?

[stamps]

Originally Posted by Fire

"Staff wants "to specifically explore venues outside of Calgary … in order to reduce the costs of hosting the 2026" Olympics, the supplemental agenda document says."

Why build new facilities in your own city when other cities have them already?

Because building the new facilities here benefit Calgary and our region .... and the purpose of holding these games would be to promote our region , which Edmonton is not a part of ... if the province is so concerned about hurting Edmonton's feelings then let them have the whole thing and refund my tax dollars on this exploratory bid and put it towards a new arena and stadium in Calgary ...

[getbak]

The whole draw of the Olympics is that you have all the best athletes in the world from every sport together in the same place competing at the same time. If you start spreading things around, you lose the appeal of the Olympics.



That said, re-using the ski jumps in Whistler likely makes the most sense for 2026. Ski Jumping is a relatively low-popularity sport in North America. It doesn't have that many competition events at the Olympics and it requires a specialized venue that can't really be repurposed for something else afterwards (I believe the only thing the big tower at COP is used for now is ziplining).

The other options for ski jumping are either to renovate/upgrade the jumps at COP or build completely new jumps elsewhere (likely in Canmore). Neither option would be cheap (and upgrading COP might not even be possible with the construction that has gone on around there in recent years).



All the other events should be held in the Calgary/Canmore/Banff region. The only other city that should be looked at is Red Deer to host the curling competition. If the new arena, Saddledome, Corral/new practice rink are allocated for hockey and figure skating/short track, they'll need a building in the 6000-8000 capacity range for curling. In that case, the Centrium is probably the best option and is about the same travel time as Banff from downtown Calgary.

[Tyler]

The new Fieldhouse will host curling

[Ashasx]

Why would I want this if we don't even get the actual hockey in Calgary? Who thought this was a good idea? Why should we spend another dime on this?

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Tyler

The new Fieldhouse will host curling

That's what is suggested in the report, but I can't see any way it survives to the actual bid. It shoehorns something into the field house that doesn't really belong.

The only way using the field house for curling would make sense is if the project involved tearing down the Bauer and Bush arenas (which it most-likely will) and re-building one of them to have at least temporary capacity of 6000 and using it for the Olympics, but that's not what is proposed.


The other obvious problem with using the field house for the Olympics is that the field house would need to be built in time for the Olympics. That's certainly no guarantee.

[MacDaddy77]

I'm sure the report will come out saying other venues outside Calgary were looked at, however it's more economic and in the best interest of the Olympic spirit for all events to be centered in Calgary and the Alpine events to be centered in Canmore. blah blah blah.

I think this is just an early way to say were considering everything.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

It's kinda sad how far Calgary's media has fallen. No tough investigative reporting of powerful interests. It's basically small-town boosterism at this point.

I would still recommend reading Jason Markusoff's work. Used to be a good writer for the Herald and now still covers the Province for Maclean's.

That is the problem with all local media, though; the National/International media is always the most critical because they don't have to bend the knee to local advertising and access like locals do.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Fire

Looks like they are planning to use Roger's Place for hockey and CommonWealth stadium for the opening/closing ceremonies. What a joke.

you should be more concerned about the reports that Calgary Bid Exploration Committee has buried reports that show their economic numbers appear to be nowhere near accurate.

[powderjunkie]

Ski jumps and sledding tracks in Canmore would be cool, especially if they could link the Nordic Centre to downtown with a gondola -also an Olympic Plaza at the downtown gondola station.

[Robbob]

IF they wanted Edmonton part of it they would need to build that high speed rail between the city. That alone is estimated to cost multiple CalgaryNexts.