Olympic chief wants games again in Montreal
It was with an unprintable vocal response that I saw this story Wednesday morning about the head of Canada’s Olympic committee wanting Montreal to bid for another instalment of the Games. I didn’t blog it. Bad dream, I thought later. But the story is back Thursday morning in La Presse.
This La Presse columnist is more or less in agreement with me. He seems to think we could stage a winter games here, but that the public would never accept the expense of another Olympics.
david10000 19:57 on 2019-11-21 Permalink
I’d love for Montreal to host the Olympics. We’d not have to build many facilities and, without question, we’d get some great new infrastructure. I rolled over to the Vancouver winter Olympics and spent the entire month there and, of course, they fucked it up. About as ugly as you can get – chain link fencing everywhere, pedestrian areas created by moving in temporary concrete medians, the works. The red rag was draped over everything. But they got some pretty great infrastructure improvements – new metro line, new plazas, new facilities. We’re talking federal government and the province opening their wallets both, for a lot of stuff the’d otherwise not pay for.
The last one was run by a bunch of megalomaniacal bozos, the next one would probably be done – like the Vancouver one – by Board of Trade types with a tight budget. It would be annoying for a couple weeks, and all the good restaurants would be booked, but we could get, say, the pink line out of it. Worth it!
Michael Black 20:49 on 2019-11-21 Permalink
The Velodrome is gone, nobody likes the Stadium, the Olympic Vilage is housing. I think some of the rowing basin is gone. There were some things in Kingston, I think more than Equestrian and that may not be there. The Old Forum was used, I can’t remember for what, but one afternoon I saw the Queen drive in in a limousine.
So I’m not sure how much remains, aside from whether it is too old.
The mountain is still tnere – it was used for some bike racea, but maybe not the Olympics. I remember seeing Eddie Merckx on tv, but a recent search indicates he wasn’t here for the 1976 Olympics, so maybe it was later.
Michael