As our Olympic Athletes complete their training and set off to compete in PyeongChang, South Korea from Feb 9 – 25th, for the 2018 Winter Olympics, we look back on this 30th Anniversary of the 1988 Winter Olympics that Calgary had the privilege of hosting.
During the ’88 Winter Olympics, Canada Olympic Park was the main venue for bobsleigh, luge, Nordic combined, ski jumping and freestyle skiing. Calgary draws winter athletes from all over the country to train at some of the top-notch facilities in the world which were initially built for the 1988 Olympics and have been upgraded and expanded ever since. Currently the park is used for both high performance athletes training as well recreational purposes for the public. During the winter months, the park is available to the public for downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, skating, bobsledding, and most recently, tubing down the Acura Tube Park. In the summer months the public has access to the mountain bike trails, zip lining, and an 810-foot, three-lane water slide.
In 2011, Winsport opened the ice facility that includes four ice rinks—one international ice size arena and three NHL sized arenas. Hockey Canada Training Centre and WinSport have teamed up to offer High Performance hockey training for elite level players of all ages no matter what the position played.
In 2008, Calgary was declared to be the best city to build the Canada Sports Hall of Fame and on July 1. 2011 it opened. I had the opportunity to get a glimpse of this fabulous building which is dedicated to preserving and celebrating Canada’s impressive and inspiring sport history.
The Markin MacPhail Centre was opened at COP in 2014, which was designed as a training facility for high performance Canadian athletes who have reached a provincial level of excellence.
Calgary Signal Hill is fortunate to have this facility in our back yard and accessible to all. We will continue to watch the expansion and renovations to ensure that athletes continue to have this available to pursue their dreams of someday standing on the podium in 2018 and beyond. We wish our Canadian representatives good luck in PyeongChang.
