The
Olympic Stadium ( ) is a multi-purpose stadium in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
district of Montreal
, Quebec
, Canada
built as the
main venue for the 1976 Summer
Olympics. It subsequently became the home of Montreal's
professional
baseball and
Canadian football teams.
Since 2004, when the
Montreal Expos relocated to Washington,
D.C.
, the stadium has no main tenant, and with a history
of financial and structural problems, is largely seen as a white elephant. It currently serves as
a 56,040-seat multipurpose facility for special events (e.g.
concerts, trade shows) during non-winter months, and continues to
serve as a 66,308-seat venue for late-season, playoff and
Grey Cup games hosted by the
Montreal Alouettes. La tour de Montréal,
the tower incorporated into the base of the stadium, is the tallest
inclined tower in the world at
175 metres, and is a member of the
World Federation of Great
Towers. The stadium's nickname
The Big O is a
reference to both its name and to the
doughnut-shape of the permanent component of the
stadium's roof, though
The Big Owe has been used
to reference the astronomical cost of the stadium and the 1976
Olympics as a whole.
History
Background and architecture
The stadium was designed by French architect
Roger Taillibert to be a very elaborate
facility featuring a
retractable
roof, which was to be opened and closed by a huge tower – the
tallest inclined structure in the world, and the
sixth tallest
building in Montreal.
The design of the stadium is remarkably
similar to the Australia Pavilion at Expo '70
in Osaka by Queensland University architect James
MacCormick.
The
Olympic swimming
pool
is located under this tower. An Olympic velodrome (since converted to the Montreal
Biodome
, an indoor nature museum) was situated at the base
of the tower in a building similar in design to the swimming
pool. The building was built as the
main stadium for the 1976 Summer Olympic
Games. The stadium was host to various events including: the
opening and closing
ceremonies,
athletics,
football finals, and some
equestrian
events.
The building's design is cited as a masterpiece of Organic Modern
architecture. Taillibert based the building on plant and animal
forms, aiming to include vertebral structures with sinewy or
tentacles, while still following the basic plans of
Modern architecture.
Construction
As construction was well underway, a labour
strike caused a major delay to the building of
the stadium and, in particular, the tower. The roof languished in a
warehouse in France until 1982. It was not until 1987, 11 years
later, that both the tower and roof were completed.
Opening
Back view at night
Problems plagued the stadium from the time it opened for the
Olympic Games, when it was only half built.
Seating 58,500 at the time, the stadium was not fully completed in
time for the Games due to problems with the unusual design and
strikes by construction workers, leaving it without a tower or roof
for the opening and several years following. Both the tower and the
roof, made of over of
Kevlar, were not
completed for over a decade, and it was not until 1988 that it was
possible to retract the roof. The roof then proved difficult to
retract, and could not be used at all in winds greater than . This
resulted in the unique phenomenon of a
rain
delay in a covered stadium during baseball season whenever rain
was accompanied by high winds. It was also torn during particularly
windy conditions.
Stadium financing
Despite initial projections in 1970 that the stadium would cost
only
C$134 million to
construct, strikes and construction delays served to escalate these
costs. By the time the stadium opened (in an unfinished form), the
total costs had risen to C$264 million.
The Quebec government introduced a special
tobacco tax in May 1976 to help recoup its
investment. By 2006, the amount contributed to the Olympic
Installations Board accounted for 8% of the tax revenue earned from
cigarette sales. The 1976 special tobacco tax act stipulated that
once the stadium was paid off, ownership of the facility would be
returned to the City of Montreal.
In mid-November 2006 the stadium's costs were finally paid in
full.The total expenditure (including repairs, renovations,
construction,
interest, and
inflation) amounted to C$1.61 billion.
Despite initial plans to complete payment in October 2006, an
indoor smoking ban introduced in May 2006 curtailed the revenue
gathered by the tobacco tax. Perceived by many to be a
white elephant, the stadium has also been
dubbed
The Big Owe,
Uh-O or
The Big
Mistake.
Continuing problems
Although not completed in time for the 1976 Olympics, construction
on finishing the tower recommenced in the 1980s. During this
period, however, a large fire set the tower ablaze, causing damage
and forcing a scheduled
Expos home
game to be postponed. In 1986, a large chunk of the tower fell onto
the playing field during another Expos game.
In 1987, an orange-coloured
Kevlar
retractable roof was installed, finally completing the stadium a
decade late; however, soon after it was put into use it ripped on
several occasions due to a design flaw. In the months that
followed, it was plagued by further rips and leaks during rain
storms, bringing water down into the stadium.
Due to claims of being a poor venue for baseball, the stadium was
remodeled in
1991, with 12,000
seats being removed, including a large number of seats far removed
from the playing field that were blocked off for Expos games.
Olympic Stadium's blue roof
On September 8 of that year, support beams snapped and caused a
concrete slab to fall on to an exterior walkway. No one was
injured, but the Expos had to move their final 13 home games of
that season to the opponents' cities. For the
1992 season, it was decided to keep the
roof closed at all times. The Kevlar roof was removed in
May 1998, making the stadium open-air for the
1998 season. Later in 1998, a
$26 million opaque blue roof was installed which does not
open.
In
January 1999, a portion of the roof
collapsed, dumping ice and snow on workers that were setting up for
the annual
Montreal Auto Show.
This led to the auto show leaving Olympic Stadium for good.
Repaired once again, the roof has been modified to better react to
the winter conditions. The OIB has installed a network of pipes to
circulate heated water under the roof to allow for snow melting.
Despite these corrective measures, the stadium floor had remained
closed from December to March.Birdair, the fabric provider and
installer of the roof, was later sued for the roof failure. The
original installer of the roof, Danny's Construction, also sued
Birdair. The company was ejected from the project by Birdair.
The stadium's condition suffered considerably in the early 21st
century. During the Expos' final years in Montreal, it was coated
with grime. Much of the concrete was chipped, stained, and
soiled.In 2009, the stadium received approval to remain open in the
winter, provided weather conditions are favourable.
Post-Olympic use
Olympic Stadium panoramic
Football
The
Canadian Football
League's
Montreal Alouettes
became the stadium's first major post-Olympic tenant when it moved
its home games there half-way through the
1976 season, remaining there through
1986, the franchise's final season
of operations.
A revived Alouettes franchise returned for
the 1996 and 1997 seasons, but then moved to the Percival Molson
Stadium
in 1998, only using the larger Olympic Stadium for
select regular-season and home playoff games. As of 2008,
the franchise uses Olympic Stadium for playoff games only. Due to
the increased popularity of the Alouettes and the small capacity of
Percival Molson Stadium, considerations had been made about
returning to Olympic Stadium on a full-time basis, provided that
changes were made to make it more fan-friendly (such as removing
the roof and curtaining off the upper level for regular-season
games). However, it is widely accepted that the team's success has
in fact been due to its decision to return to Molson Stadium. The
team will instead renovate Percival Molson Stadium to increase the
capacity, which may cause them to abandon Olympic Stadium
entirely.
Olympic Stadium has hosted the
Grey Cup a
total of six times, most recently in 2008 when the
Calgary Stampeders defeated the hometown
Alouettes. The stadium holds the record for the ten
largest crowds in CFL history, which include
six regular-season and four Grey Cup games. A single-game record
crowd numbering 69,083 attended a game played on September 6, 1977
between the Alouettes and
Toronto
Argonauts.
In 1991 and 1992, the stadium played host to the
Montreal Machine of the
World League of American
Football. This included hosting
World
Bowl II on June 6, 1992, in which the
Sacramento Surge defeated the
Orlando Thunder 21-17 before 43,789
fans.
In 1988 and 1990, NFL pre-season games were played at Olympic
Stadium.
Baseball
In
1977, the stadium replaced Jarry Park
Stadium
as the home ballpark of the National League's Montreal Expos, who regularly played 81 home
games every season until 2003, when the Expos played 22 home games
at Hiram Bithorn
Stadium
in San Juan, Puerto Rico
. The Expos played 59 home games at Olympic
Stadium in 2003 and 2004, and then the franchise was moved to
Washington,
D.C. after the 2004
season. The stadium's first-ever baseball game was played on
April 14, 1977. In front of 57,592 fans, the Expos lost 7–2 to the
Philadelphia
Phillies. The Expos played five home playoff games in
1981; two in the
National League Division
Series against the
Phillies, and three in the
National League
Championship Series against the
Los Angeles Dodgers. On
October 19, the Expos lost the decisive fifth game, 2–1, to the
Dodgers on
Rick Monday's ninth-inning
home run. In
1982, the
Major League Baseball
All-Star Game was played at Olympic Stadium in front of 59,057
fans--a stadium record for baseball. On September 29, 2004, the
Expos played their last game in Montreal, losing 9–1 to the
Florida Marlins before
31,395 fans.
Although the Expos were Olympic Stadium's primary tenants, it
proved to be somewhat problematic as a baseball venue. It employed
construction techniques similar to those used in other multipurpose
stadiums of the time. As was the case elsewhere where this approach
was tried, sight lines for baseball left much to be desired. The
sight-line problems were magnified by the fact that Canadian
football fields are 30 yards longer than
American football fields. To accommodate
the wider Canadian football field, the lower boxes were set further
back than comparable seats in other stadiums built during this
time. The upper deck was one of the highest in the majors. Still,
the Expos were very successful in the stadium for a time, with
above National League median attendance in 1977 and from 1979 to
1983. The Expos outdrew the
New York
Mets from 1977 to 1983, and 1994 to 1996, as well as the
New York Yankees from 1982 to
1983.
Before the
1992 season, a
major overhaul was done on the stadium's baseball configuration.
Home plate was moved closer to the stands and new seats closer to
the field were installed. As part of the renovation, several
distant sections of permanent seating beyond the fence were closed,
replaced with bleacher seats directly behind the outfield fence.
The total seating capacity for baseball was reduced to
46,000.
Soccer
The Olympic Stadium was the home of the
NASL's
Montreal Manic soccer team from 1981-1983. A
1981 playoff game against the
Chicago
Sting attracted a crowd of over 58,000.
Several games of the
2007 FIFA
Under 20 World Cup were played at
Olympic Stadium and drew the largest crowds of the tournament,
including two sell-outs of 55,800.
Olympic
Stadium hosted a CONCACAF
Champions League quarter-final game pitting the Montreal Impact - who play primarily in the
adjacent Stade
Saputo
- against Club Santos
Laguna of the Mexican First
Division on February 25, 2009. This was the first time
an international soccer game took place in Montreal during the
winter months.
[60717] The Impact won 2-0 in front of a record
crowd of 55,571.
Other
The stadium also has various other multipurpose uses.
On September 11, 1984,
Pope John Paul
II participated in a youth rally with about 55,000 people in
attendance.
The
Jackson 5 led by
Michael Jackson performed on September 17th
and 18th, 1984. It was their final performance as a group in
Montreal.
Many musical events have taken place at this location, including
the famed riots after Axl Rose andMetallica frontman James Hetfield
suffered second and third degree burns to his left arm after
stepping too close to a pyrotechnics blast during the opening of
"Fade to Black". Metallica was forced to cancel the second hour of
the show, but promised to return to the city for another show
See GNR-Metallica Stadium
Tour.
Attendance record
Pink Floyd attracted the largest ever
paid crowd to the Olympic Stadium. The July 6, 1977 event gathered
78,322 fans.Michael Jackson and the Jacksons attracted 58,270 fans
during their North American Victory tour on September 17 and 18,
1984.
Transit
The
stadium is directly
connected to the Pie-IX metro station
on the Green Line of the Montreal Metro.
Facts and figures
- At , the Olympic Stadium is both the world's
tallest slanted structure and
stadium.
- Well over its original budget, the stadium ended up costing
$770 million to construct. By 2006, the final cost had risen
to $1.47 billion when calculating in repairs, modifications
and interest paid out. It took taxpayers 30 years to finally
pay off the cost, leading to its nickname of "The Big Owe" (a play
on "The Big O").
- The roof is only above the field of play. As a result, a number
of pop-ups and long home runs hit the
roof over the years, necessitating the painting of orange lines on
the roof to separate foul balls from fair balls.
- The
Olympic Stadium's foul poles were painted red, while every other
baseball stadium uses yellow poles (except Shea Stadium
(1964–2008) and Citi Field
(2009–Present) home of the New York Mets which have orange foul
poles.)
- The Olympic Stadium holds the record for a soccer game
attendance in Canada. At the 1976 Summer Olympics soccer final, 72,000
people witnessed East Germany's 3-1 win
over Poland.
- A yellow seat on the 300 level commemorates a 534-foot home run
by Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
- The Montreal games of the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup were held
at Olympic Stadium on a FieldTurf surface
that was installed specifically for the tournament.
See also
Notes
- Official Government of Quebec page for the stadium,
where it is referred to as "Olympic Stadium"
- Rémillard, 196.
- ESPN.com: MLB - Merron: What a disaster!
- The Pope in Canada: A Journey Into the
Heart
- ESPN.com: MLB - Merron: The Disastrous 'Big Owe'
References
- Rémillard, Francois. Montreal architecture: A Guide to
Styles and Buildings. Montreal: Meridian Press, 1990.
External links
Multimedia
- CBC Archives - Clip from 1975 – Stadium
architect talks about his design
- CBC Archives – A look back on the history of
the stadium (1999)
- CBC Archives - Discussion of building a tower
for Montreal
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