CALGARY, Alberta — Beyond sports, the Olympics can alter a city's identity.
Just ask University of Calgary professor J.R. Brent Ritchie, who used the 1988 Winter Games as a "once in a lifetime research laboratory" to produce numerous academic writings about the Olympic impact on a society.
His latest article on the subject, "Turning 16 days into 16 years," is set for publication this year.
"People still talk about it," he said. "It's almost like Calgary before the Olympics and Calgary after the Olympics."
In many ways, Calgary and Salt Lake City are similar.
Both cities have a Western, even cowboyish tradition but are increasingly cosmopolitan as their populations expand.
Calgary has roughly 860,000 folks, while the Salt Lake Valley is home to some 850,000 people, and each has a largely white demographic that is gradually diversifying.
And come next spring, the two Western cities will have a common Olympic past to boot.
Looking at Calgary 13 years removed from its Olympics may provide interesting insight to what Salt Lake City will look like after the Olympics.
Since the Olympic Games rolled through, Calgary, home to a world famous stampede, is increasingly chic.
It has hosted more than 40 World Cup and world championship events such as snowboarding, bobsled, luge, skeleton and others.
Record numbers of Europeans, Americans and Canadians living outside Alberta have poured into the province, where tourism is the fourth-largest industry behind oil and gas, forestry and agriculture.
As a result of the world-class sporting facilities, Calgary has become home to many of Canada's greatest winter sports athletes.
The evolution is real.
But the trigger for change is debatable.
The sports legacy, most obviously, is a direct Olympic result.
But the city's evolution from country to trendy, its increased tourism base and its transformation into a big industry player is harder to link to the Games.
Alberta's huge oil and natural gas reserves have definitely been a factor, and Calgary now has as many or more major corporate headquarters than Montreal. The increased industry means extra people are needed to fill the skyscrapers, and corporate paychecks have led to a younger, wealthier population, which has helped shape a trendy atmosphere in the city nicknamed "Cowtown."
"It's definitely more of a global kind of community," said Tim Hendrickson, owner of an upscale wine shop on Calgary's chic 17th Avenue. Hendrickson has lived in Calgary since 1970, and the wine shop opened three years before the Games. He says much has changed since the '88 Olympics.
"You see a lot of stuff you wouldn't see this far inland. A lot of businesses in Canada have decided to open their head offices here," he said. "We see a lot of tourists from Japan and Europe in Calgary now."
And 17th Avenue is a good place to notice the change. Boutiques, hairdressers, upscale clothing stores, chocolate shops, cheese retailers, sushi bars and, of course, speciality wine stores line the street.
Downtown, shops such as Latino World, Katmandu Cafe, Zen Cafe and a Chinatown district are physical manifestations of the city's growing Eastern Indian, Hispanic and Asian communities.
The ethnic shops share downtown space with Tiffany's, Gucci and a Chanel boutique, which have all moved in since the Games.
"Everyone makes fun of Cowtown, but I've noticed over the last five years the city definitely has become more cosmopolitan," boutique clerk and student Caryn Sturhahn said. "Calgary hosting the Olympics was a really big deal.
"That might have been the onset of us becoming a big city."
An economic boost
Before Calgary, the Winter Games were more like a curse than an economic windfall.
Lake Placid, N.Y., for instance, home to the 1980 Games, incurred debt and remains a small, out-of-the-way place where, until recently, sporting venues were decaying. In Sarevjeo, Yugoslavia — 1984 Winter Games host — bobsled tracks, skating rinks and ski hills are war-torn and in disrepair.
Calgary, in contrast, used the world sporting stage as a catapult to success and hosted the first Winter Olympics to turn a marked profit, albeit with a multimillion-dollar infusion of federal money to cover Games costs.
Since 1988, cities have looked to the Olympics for an economic boost, like Gerhard Heiberg did as president of the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway.
"This place in Norway had a lot of unemployment, and people were moving away. We thought, 'What do we do to turn this around?' and we said, 'Let's go for the biggest event in the world,' " Heiberg said. "Our main goal was not to host the Olympic Games but to turn that economic trend around."
And the plan has worked, Heiberg says. More businesses have come to the Norwegian city, and tourists from Norway and beyond are attracted there.
The key, then, is ensuring that hoards come back and don't simply spend a week of pleasure only to never return.
In Alberta, the Games have given rise to increased tourism numbers, however Ritchie is one who has been critical of Calgary planners for not capitalizing more on Olympic exposure as it relates to tourism.
"The failure, or lack of desire, of the 1988 organizing committee to recognize the value of the Games to the long-term tourism well-being of the region is one of the few areas where Calgary might have achieved even greater success," Ritchie concludes in an academic paper, "Lessons Learned, Lessons Learning: Insights from the Calgary and Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games."
In fact, short-term tourism may suffer because of the Games. Ritchie, in an academic article, noted that many tourism operators — especially the ski resorts — experienced a drop in business during the Games.
In the long run, however, the tourism industry has witnessed substantial gains that have created a windfall for the local economy. More than 12 years later, leisure and business visitations are above the national average, and the profitability of regional tourism is competitive with the lucrative oil and gas industry.
"Before the Games, we were so unknown. Some people didn't think we had electricity up here," Don Boynton, communications director for Travel Alberta, said. "We do have cities up here, and we do have transit that works. People found that out."
An Olympic legacy
Post-Games maintenance of competition facilities allows a city to continue drawing World Cup and world championship events, keeping a destination in the mind of global travelers.
"You'll have Europeans saying, 'Gee, I never thought about going to Utah,' " Calgary Olympic Development Association president John Mills said. "There will be a large number of Europeans including Salt Lake and Park City on their itineraries. You won't believe how many bobsled junkies will travel there for World Cup and world championship events."
After 1988, Calgary established a $70 million sports legacy fund, which has allowed Calgary to remain in the international spotlight hosting dozens of major international competitions.
Utah's sports legacy plan is similar to Calgary's.
Randy Dryer, a local attorney, is the man orchestrating Utah's Olympic sporting legacy and would like a $40 million account designed to keep up facilities for 20 years after the Games increased to $60 million to ensure life-long maintenance. As chairman of the Utah Athletic Foundation, which will inherit Utah Olympic Park and the speedskating oval, he hopes Salt Lake City can mirror Calgary's post-Olympic sporting success.
Dryer expects many more high-performance American athletes will begin to take up residence in and around Salt Lake City.
"We've already seen that happening," he said. "We've seen jumpers, aerialists and sliders moving to Utah to live and train."
In an effort to bring more athletes to the area, Dryer's group has negotiated with the Utah Board of Regents to offer resident tuition status to world-class performers.
Since many Olympic athletes are college-age, Dryer says the plan will help attract the potential Winter Games participants, which will boost Utah's reputation as a winter sports mecca enticing tourist and international sporting events organizers.
Already Dryer is confident Salt Lake City will be awarded the 2003 Winter Goodwill Games.
To boot, with world-class athletes available to put on clinics for aspiring younger Utahns, the sporting fervor will snowball and native Utahns will begin showing up in mass at future Olympics.
E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com