Perfect: A Flame That Will Never Die

Newspaper Name: Calgary Herald
Province: Alberta
Town(s) Served: Calgary
Published: 02/29/1988
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The 1988 Winter Olympics thrust Canada onto the world stage, demonstrating that our country could host an international sporting event the likes of which hadn’t been seen before. The impacts of these Games were many:
• The 1988 staging of the Games showed that the Winter Olympics could grow in size; a record 57 countries competed.
• They proved that hosting the Olympics could be a profitable venture for a city and country.
• They were the first Games to have large TV revenue attached to them; broadcast rights were sold for more than $324 million while just eight years earlier in the U.S. (the Lake Placid Games), the broadcast rights earned just over $20 million.
• These were also the first Games to really show how the Olympics could capitalize on volunteers. More than 22,000 people applied for 9,400 volunteer jobs.