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THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES ARE DONE |
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Written by Alex J. Walling
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Monday, 12 March 2007 |
By Alex J. Walling
 Oh, what a week in sports and civic politics.
I think I can honestly say that in being in the media business for over 40 years I have seen a lot but nothing like the 2014 Commonwealth games pull out which was last Thursday, March 8th.
On that day the media received a notice that a news/press conference would take place at 11:30 at city hall where HRM Mayor Peter Kelly and the Minister of Health, Promotion and Protection, Barry Barnett, were to hold a joint release.
The trouble is city council didn’t know about it. The result was a mess and chaos at city hall.
So we don’t get the games. Games that I believed in at the beginning. Games, which I favoured when I heard that the Hamilton figure of 500-million. A figure I thought was realistic. Then I bought into the 750-million figure and it seems a few weeks later the 785-million figure became the one we were stuck with.
I was prepared to go higher, as high as a billion bucks for these games but that was my limit.
I think we all have a limit although I have talked to a few who seemingly had ‘no limit’ which I find amazing. That’s like saying I’ll take a home worth 250 thousand but if need be, pay any price for it.
The announcement of the game being called off was one thing but the re-action to it from 2014 Commonwealth games committee was another.
In fact there’s a new play coming soon to the Neptune Theatre. The title is ‘It’s a sad, sad, day’ and it’s about the failed 2014 Commonwealth Games. It stars Chairman Fred MacGillivray as lead and dramatic actor, Scott Logan, Games CEO, as best supporting actor and the play is written by Debra Hashey the Communications Czar, whose department, in my humble opinion, failed to communicate the 2014 story, to us.
While I admire Fred for the many things he has done since he took over the WTCC some 14 years ago; his performance and that of Andrew Pipe, President of Commonwealth Games Canada, at the hastily called press conference last Thursday, was over the top. Both will win Oscars for most ‘dramatic performances’.
Fabulous Fred made it sound as if last Thursday was the worst day in Halifax’s history but let’s keep things in perspective.
Dec 6, 1917, was a sad day when the Halifax Explosion took place. So was September 2003 when Hurricane Juan ragged through our city and causing millions in damage.
Those were sad days. Not getting a 5th rate sporting event such as these games doesn’t qualify as a sad day. It would have been a sad day had the 2014 Gang put the city in a billion dollar debt position.
As for Pipe, the reason he was teed off is that his organization, which is irrelevant, totally out of date and out of touch with the average Canadian, stood to make over 50-million on these games. Sounds like greed speaking not sorrow.
Here are some dandy quotes from this bid attempt.
Logan: “It’s not going to be big like Melbourne. We will scale it down. It will be affordable.”
Response: Right. 1.7 billion (And that’s a low ball figure) doesn’t sound like a scaled down version. And $350 for opening ceremony tickets, ouch!
Logan: “The 785 million dollar figure was in the ‘domestic’ bid process.”
Response: Scott, domestic, international, inter-galaxy, whatever, the 785-million figure is the one that we lived by. The one you wrapped your bid around for so long.
MacGillivray: “We knew early on it would be a big, big, number.”
Response: Uh, what!!! If you knew, why didn’t you tell us?
Debra Hashey (Communications Czar). “I can’t tell you that, as it may jeopardize our bid.
Response: But all I wanted to know was if Fred was flying in economy or business class. So how does that jeopardize our position????
Don Mills: (the pollster and apparent conflict of interest as co-leader of the ‘Bring on the Games’ committee): “Our polls say over 70% are in favour of the games and we are accurate, by 3%, 19 out of 20 times.”
Response: This must be the 20th time.
Other quotes: “Pulling out is an embarrassment”.
Response: Get serious. Denver got the 1976 Olympics and dumped them. It didn’t hurt them a bit.
Various: “Halifax won’t get any big events anyone.”
Response: Give me a break; we have a great track record with the World events, Memorial Cup, Briers, Juno and other things we’ve held.
And the one that really gets me is: “We missed our chance to get on the map”.
What hogwash, baloney, B.S. and drivel!
We’ve been on the map for a long, long time.
We made the Canadian map in 1969 when Halifax successfully hosted the very first Canada Summer Games.
We made the map of the U.S. eastern seaboard and beyond from 1970 onwards when we joined the AHL where we stayed for 23 years. Rochester, Hershey, Baltimore, Utica, Providence, New Haven, Portland, Springfield, Cincinnati and many more USA cities heard of the Vees, the Oilers and Citadels on their daily sportscasts.
We made the WORLD map when we sold out the Metro centre for 10 straight nights (then a new Metro centre) record for the World Figure Skating championships in 1990.
The different WORLD canoeing titles (Junior and Senior) put us again on the map in the 1990’s. World this (World Juniors) and World that (World Women’s) again made us known. We’ve done so many Worlds’ that Rene Fasel (IIHF) and Bob Nicholson (Hockey Canada) wants to set up offices in HRM.
But, if you are looking for one really (as Ed Sullivan would say) really big shoe, then take 1995.
For nearly a week the world saw, came and watched as Halifax hosted the G7.
Yes, Bill (Clinton) and Boris (Yeltsin) strolled through the streets of the city and the world watched.
And none other than Wolf Blitzer did his nightly show from our Metro Centre. Forget Bill and Boris, does it get any bigger than Wolf and CNN.
Heck, not only are we on the map but in many cases own it.
The death of the games on Thursday March 8 did have some good points. One, I never saw so many media people in one place. In fact I’m convinced if anything major had taken place in the city there wouldn’t have been anyone to cover it.
And as a media person I’m delighted with the coverage of this major story. Both papers had pages and pages on the different side bars this event and demise provided.
Rick Howe and his CJCH Hotline was on it from the outset last Thursday. In fact Howe may be the first person who was tipped off on it and he spent a huge part of his Hotline show on the subject. He knew about this press conference at six in the morning.
In fact Howe, in the past month, has been on a roll. Great talk shows on this topic over the past few weeks and he seems to become a weekly fixture on TV. In the past few weeks I’ve caught him on the ATV Evening news with Steve Murphy and not once but twice on the political panel with Norma Lee McLeod on CBC.
Ball cap, jeans and all, Howe is the same on TV as he is on his hotline show.
Another station that deserves kudos is News95.7 What great ‘team coverage’ on this story. While most stations gave us one story on the event these guys went to town.
Story after story, angle after angle flew from my radio speakers in my office, the car and the internet.
I know Laura Graham and one other reporter was there. Someone went out in the street and talked to people and Doug Reynolds, the morning anchor, did a bit with Bruce DeVenne, the prime anti games person.
All in all this is what I expect an all-news radio station to do and it was well done.
On the TV front, both ATV and CBC had great coverage. Steve Murphy in his nightly interview had 2014 Games Chairman Fred MacGillivray while CBC had their political panel on that night with Howe replacing Marilla Stephenson along with Dan Legere.
It was a gigantic news day for Halifax and for a change it did not involve loss of life as in Flight 111 or Hurricane Juan.
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