Ahira's Hangar

I'll admit, I was wondering where in the hell Chicago was going to stash all of its street people and aggressive panhandlers if they had gotten the games. In the summer they live pretty much everywhere including the bushes of Grant Park, where many of the big museums and tourist attractions are located! Not to mention what Chicago would do about their huge crime rate, including a murder rate to rival (or perhaps even surpass) Detroit's or Baltimore's.

And I was wondering where on earth they would get the money to put them on - most parts of the upper Midwest are really financially struggling right now, with tons of unemployment!

I have thought that losing the Olympics to Brazil was actually a blessing for the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.

And yes - from what I remember Montreal only paid off their summer games a few years ago!

I think that a big part of it is either using existing facilities as much as humanly possible (especially not in building huge stadiums which might or might not have future tenant teams) or putting in facilities that can be used as year round training centers, so they are not a complete financial waste.

Yeah, it's a huge cost. We're having the same thing about the World Cup...actually going to end up costing us a fortune. Not to mention the white elephant stadiums...FIFA regs say stadiums have to seat 50,000 people...so we built new ones...nobody knows what we're going to do with them afterwards though...no clubs are interested in renting them, their own 30,000 capacity stadiums are fine, not to mention much cheaper.

--A

I also hear there is also a major health care concern, as 1/2 of South Africa's prostitutes are said to be HIV positive or have AIDs

Well, condoms are freely available, but the solution is to simply not frequent the prostitutes. Or at least, only the better class of them.

Oh, there's lots of concerns, some patently ridiculous.

You heard the latest? Big concerns because an attack on soldiers escorting a Togolese soccer team for the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola. A couple of players got shot. FIFA is worried it means we will not be able to keep the WC secure.

Doesn't anybody know anything about Africa for gods' sakes? The distance between Joburg and Angola is the same as the distance between London and Moscow. It's like saying Berlin was compromised in the last world cup because of the war in Iraq. We don't even share a border with the place.

Hell, the leader of the rebels has come out and apologised, saying the soccer players were an accident, they only meant to shoot the Angolan soldiers.

But FIFA has dispatched a team to investigate the situation.

--A

I think that perhaps the Expos played baseball in that big Montreal stadium, before they moved to Washington. Do not know if the CFL team plays there or not.

Oh yeah, totally forgot about the Expos.
Tells you how much I followed baseball - even when a Canadian team was involved!

Makes sense that they would have played in that stadium. In which case, it was good for something at least, heh heh.
If I have my facts straight, the '76 Montreal Olympics holds the dubious distinction of being the only Games in which the host country failed to win any Gold Medal.
Maybe that's why we Canucks don't talk much about those Games!

It's logical that the Montreal Alouettes football team would play there, too.
Geez, I should pay more attention to these things...

History of the Montreal Stadium (which ended up costing taxpayers well over a billion dollars when all is said and done ):