Jump to content

Olympic Stadium (Montreal)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by WillC (talk | contribs) at 02:49, 17 March 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Le Stade Olympique
Olympic Stadium
The Big O
Montreal's Olympic Stadium
Facility Statistics
Location 4549 Pierre de Coubertin Avenue
Montreal, Quebec H1V 3N7
(45°33′30″N 73°33′6″W / 45.55833°N 73.55167°W / 45.55833; -73.55167)
Broke Ground April 28, 1973
Opened July 17, 1976 (Olympics)
April 15, 1977 (Baseball)
Surface Grass (1976)
AstroTurf (1977–2001)

Defargo Astrograss (2002–2003) FieldTurf (2004) AstroTurf (2005)

Owner Régie des Installations Olympiques (Government of Quebec)
Construction Cost C$ 770 million
C$ 2.3 billion (with interest)
Architect Roger Taillibert
Tenants
Montreal Expos 1977–2004
Montreal Alouettes 1976–1997; 1997-present (playoff games)
Seating Capacity
Baseball 43,739
Football 56,245
Dimensions
Left Field 325 ft / 99 m
Left-Centre 375 ft / 114 m
Centre Field 404 ft / 123 m
Right-Centre 375 ft / 114 m
Right Field 325 ft / 99 m
Backstop 53 ft / 16 m

Montreal's Olympic Stadium (French Le Stade Olympique) was the main venue of the 1976 Summer Olympics and was the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Montreal Expos from 1977 until the franchise was moved to Washington, DC after the 2004 season. It now serves as a 56,040-seat multipurpose stadium for the city.

It is the most expensive building on the planet.

The park opened for baseball on April 15, 1977, with the Philadelphia Phillies beating the Montreal Expos 7–2. The Expos played their home games at the stadium from then on, except for 13 games played on the road in 1991 and 22 home games played at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico in each of the 2003 and 2004 seasons. Their final home game was a 9–1 loss against the Florida Marlins on September 29, 2004. At the time, it was "hailed" as the worst active venue in Major League Baseball, tied for that "honour" with the Minnesota Twins' Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.

Nicknamed "The Big O", the stadium was designed to be a very elaborate facility and was to feature a retractable roof, which was to be retracted by a huge 556 foot (approx. 169 1/2 metres) tower — the tallest inclined structure in the world, a foot taller than the Washington Monument, and the sixth tallest building in Montreal. The Olympic swimming pool is located under this tower. Designed by Paris architect Roger Taillibert, the park was very expensive, with the total cost of the stadium being over C$1 billion. The city of Montreal will only have completely paid off this debt by 2006. Due to its extremely high cost, the stadium has also been dubbed The Big Owe. The then-mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, is remembered for saying, in a speech announcing that Montreal would host the games, "The Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby." This now-famous quote is often parodied by residents.

Problems plagued the stadium from the time it opened for the Olympic Games. The 58,500-seat stadium was not fully completed in time for the games due to strikes by construction workers. Both the tower and the roof, made of over 60,000 feet (approximately 18,500 meters) of kevlar, were not completed for over a decade, and it was not until 1988 that it was possible to retract the roof. The 65-ton roof then proved difficult to retract, and was occasionally torn in heavy winds.

The roof is only 52 metres (171 ft) above the field of play. As a result, a number of pop-ups and long home runs hit the roof since play began, necessitating the painting of orange lines on the roof to separate foul balls from fair balls.

Olympic Stadium was remodeled in 1991, with 12,000 seats being removed for Expos games. On September 8 of that year, support beams snapped and caused a 55 ton concrete slab to fall on to an interior walkway. No one was injured, but the Expos had to play their final 13 home games on the road. The following season, the retractable roof concept was abandoned in favour of a permanent cover. The fixed roof was removed in May of 1998, turning the park into an outdoor stadium for the season. A new permanent roof was installed for the 1999 season and has remained on the park since.

In addition to the Expos, the park was home to the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes for a number of years, but they now use the Percival Molson Stadium of McGill University. However, the stadium is often still used for the team's playoff games. The stadium also has various other multipurpose uses: indoor exhibitions, monster truck shows, and so forth. In 2005, the FieldTurf surface was sold for $1 million (Canadian) to the BC Place domed stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is being used by the CFL B.C. Lions.

The stadium is directly connected to the Pie-IX metro station on the Green Line of the Montreal Metro.

Olympic Stadium was heavily featured on the final episode of The Amazing Race: Family Edition, when teams spent part of a leg in Montreal.

Wrestlemania 23, which is (along with Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan) rumoured to take place in Montreal would likley take place at the Olympic Stadium.

It hosted the 1982 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.


Template:Olympic Stadium

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olympic_Stadium_(Montreal)&oldid=44152601"