Games leave legacy worth celebrating

Opinion

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This article was published 16/08/2017 (2689 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the city cleans up after a humdinger of a party, the Canada Summer Games leave behind many legacies that ensure Manitoba will long remember the summer of 2017.

One permanent memento that seems an apt symbol of Winnipeg’s role as the Games’ main host and hub is the 2.5-metre-high “WINNIPEG” sign that was erected beside Festival Stage at The Forks. The block letters are illuminated and shine brightly, much like the city’s reputation after the Games that were successful beyond expectations.

Officials held a news conference on Tuesday to outline a windfall of sporting equipment and facility improvements that are spinoffs of the Games that ended Sunday.

More than $800,000 worth of equipment has been endowed to Manitoba’s sporting community, including Swiss timing electronics, upgraded scoreboards, docks, a pontoon boat, a batting cage and 3,000 competition-level balls.

This equipment is appreciated, but the Games’ most significant long-term impact on the local sporting community will be $29 million worth of improvements to venues, including prodigious upgrades to the Sport for Life Centre fieldhouse at 145 Pacific Ave., which hosted volleyball and basketball; a new scoreboard and surface at Investors Group Field; a new bulkhead at Pan Am Pool; a new 10-kilometre mountain-bike course at FortWhyte Alive; and a competition-class beach volleyball venue at the Cindy Klassen Recreation Complex at Sargent Park.

Those are tangible benefits of hosting the Games, but there are other benefits that are more human than structural.

Manitobans enjoyed the rare opportunity to watch, up-close and at home, some of the country’s top athletes. Festival organizers say early figures show more than 150,000 spectator visits to athletic events during the two weeks of the Games, a larger number than expected. There were sellout crowds at volleyball and softball, and big crowds to watch soccer, swimming and triathlon. About 7,000 spectators watched Team Manitoba take silver in the gold-medal baseball game, which Baseball Canada says is the largest crowd ever to watch an under-17 baseball game.

Manitobans also took full advantage of a deluxe lineup of musical concerts. There were an estimated 120,000 visits to the Forks to take in the roster of 150 acts that included big names such as the Sheepdogs, Alan Doyle, Serena Ryder, Tanya Tagaq, Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Trews, Brett Kissel and the reunited Crash Test Dummies. Where else could fans see such big-ticket acts for free?

Games CEO Jeff Hnatiuk and his team are to be commended for staging an event that was mammoth in scope and first-rate in execution.

But there should be a special tip of the Summer Games cap to the volunteers — it was they who were on the front lines, dealing face-to-face with the 3,400 athletes and their families, ensuring events ran smoothly, patiently answering countless questions from out-of-towners, solving unanticipated problems and smiling genially throughout it all.

Winnipeggers will long remember the Games of 2017, thanks to the legacy of improved sporting facilities.

But there’s a legacy of another type: visitors returning to their home provinces this week will rave and spread the word about their wonderful welcome in Winnipeg, and that’s a credit to the 6,000 amiable ambassadors who volunteered to make the Games a triumph.