Patriot Hearts (16 page)

Everyone at
VANOC
knew this was going to be one of those storms we were going to have to just get through. Perhaps our first big test.

As an organizing committee, we were unique in that we had asked upfront that the construction program be our responsibility. Most Olympic organizing committees delegate that duty to another company altogether. That company then carries responsibility for all costs, and if there are overruns it—not the organizing committee—has to go cap in hand to some level of government for more money. But we felt that model hadn’t worked well in the past. Most recently, construction on venues for both the 2004 and 2006 Olympics was still being done mere weeks before the start of the Games. Costs went way over budget, and the headlines were ugly. In both cases, the overruns would taint the Olympics. We wanted to control our own destiny, especially given that our reputation was our single biggest asset.

Before we announced that we were looking for more money, we had to demonstrate that we had already tried to trim construction costs as much as we could. This meant taking an almost forensic look at every project and seeing if we could cut something out of the original design to save a few bucks while not harming the integrity of the venue itself. It was vital that we demonstrated to taxpayers that we understood and respected the fact that this was their money and we were not going to be frivolous with it in any way.

The evolution of the Richmond Olympic Oval is a good example of our taking a hard second look in light of the funding challenges that were confronting us. In our original plan, the Oval was slated to be built at Simon Fraser University for an estimated cost of about $63 million. But by the spring of 2004, that projection was already out of date and under pressure. We now estimated the Oval could cost as much as 20 per cent more, given that a lot of construction materials, such as concrete and steel, were rising at ridiculous rates almost weekly. Steel prices had more than doubled over the previous year, and concrete costs were three to five times higher. Greater Vancouver was in the midst of a construction boom, so workers were in high demand and their rates were going up as well. We were facing this perfect storm of circumstances that was attacking our bottom line.

It didn’t take long for the media to conclude that if the costs to build the Oval were up 20 per cent, the cost of everything else was probably going up by a similar rate. And every time the media went to a provincial or federal politician, the answer was “There’s no more money,” which we read as we’d better pull out all the stops. The punditry portrayed us as being in trouble and perhaps in over our heads. The situation forced us to be ultra-creative.

We had hoped that the Oval would be a major contributor to sport programs at
SFU
long after the Games were over. It was expected that the university would also make a significant investment in the project. But it quickly became apparent that almost the entire cost of the project was going to be borne by us. The university was going to come up with $5 million and no more. With costs rising at the rate they were, that wasn’t going to be enough unless we were prepared to put up a building that resembled a giant shed.

One day I was driving home to suburban Richmond and got stuck in a rush hour traffic jam. I started daydreaming about the Oval challenge. It occurred to me that the City of Richmond had invested $500,000 to help us secure the bid without any expectation it would get something in return. Sitting in my car, I mapped out on a scrap of paper the potential sports legacy a structure like the Oval might have in a community like Richmond. I figured Richmond, with its entrepreneurial partnership-like spirit, might be interested in taking this project on.

The next day, Terry Wright and I sat down with Richmond’s top official, George Duncan, a towering man and at one time a helluva squash player who wore his community pride on his sleeve. I drew up my concept on his whiteboard, gushed on about the potential benefits to the community of such a venue and suggested that if Richmond took the project on it would get a $63-million gift from
VANOC
and ownership of a one-of-a-kind sports facility. We suggested the Oval would allow the city to rethink its long-term recreational sports facility strategy. George was intrigued and more than a little excited but said he’d need to talk to Mayor Malcolm Brodie and members of city council. Soon we got a message back that the city was interested in entering any competition we commissioned to land the rights to the Oval.

We now had to have an uncomfortable conversation with the folks at SFU. They were not happy when we advised them we were planning to put the Oval up for grabs through a competitive bidding process. We tried to get other municipalities interested, but in the end it came down to
SFU
versus Richmond. It was no contest. Richmond put an enormous amount of effort into its submission. City staff had flown around the world to look at other ovals. They proposed using a magnificent piece of land along the Fraser River, easily the city’s premier site, to build on. The architectural renderings of the structure the city envisioned would clearly make it the most celebrated venue of the Games. After the Olympics, the city planned to convert the Oval to a magnificent recreational complex, probably the best in the country with a focus on high-performance and community-based activities.

The final price tag would turn out to be $178 million. The city paid for it by selling roughly 20 acres of land it had around the site of the Oval for about $140 million. The architects planned to build the structure, in part, with wood from trees in B.C.’s interior that had been killed by the pine beetle, which would eventually help make the project even more popular with the public. It would be an architectural marvel. The crown jewel of the Games. The “wow” structure that every Olympic Games wants to have.

Simon Fraser’s proposal wasn’t at the same level as Richmond’s. That was a simple fact. There just wasn’t going to be anywhere near the same communitywide legacy as Richmond was envisioning. We had suggested the university try to enlist the help of the City of Burnaby, where the school was located, to get additional funding, but that didn’t go anywhere. Burnaby’s mayor, Derek Corrigan, was not a fan of the Games, so the likelihood of his becoming a champion of SFU’s quest for the Oval was pegged at about zero. It was a shame, because our polling confirmed that Burnaby was a major hotbed of support for the Olympics. We had little choice but to go with Richmond.

I wanted to tell the university’s president, Michael Stevenson, about our decision in person. The timing meant flying home from Athens, where I was attending the Summer Games. I went up to the school with Dave Cobb, who had graduated from
SFU
and was a favourite son. I was hoping his presence might defuse some of the anger and tension I anticipated. It didn’t.

Michael was pretty miffed. The next day we announced our decision publicly. Michael was quoted in the newspaper as saying he was looking forward to getting an explanation from
VANOC
about why we had decided on Richmond—making no mention of our face-to-face meeting a day earlier. Derek Corrigan, true to form, used the occasion to take some more shots at us. Most of the media coverage was positive, with many people suggesting we’d pulled off a major coup. We had done our duty and protected taxpayers from a huge cost increase. We felt badly for SFU, but our mandate had become extremely challenging and we were playing for keeps.

It wouldn’t get any easier moving forward.

Since returning from Prague, we had trimmed about $85 million from our original capital costs budget of $470 million by refining designs, cutting out elements that were difficult to build, and by deciding to house the broadcast media in the new Vancouver Convention Centre downtown. Originally, the plan had been to put the broadcasters in a temporary building in Richmond and the print media in Canada Place on Vancouver’s waterfront.
NBC
’s head honcho, Dick Ebersol, hated that idea and told us so every time he came to town to talk about 2010. He was furious that the broadcasters, who had paid billions of dollars for the right to cover the Games, were being “stuck out in Richmond.” Once we were convinced that the new Convention Centre, which had been plagued by delays and cost overruns, was going to be built on time for us, we made the move. It was going to save money too, because we were not going to have to build a $20-million temporary structure in Richmond. So Richmond lost the broadcasters but had a lock on the Oval.

We were determined that we were not going to provide the two levels of government or the media a whiff of any new numbers until we were satisfied they were ones we knew we could count on until the end. We simply could not afford to get it wrong. We would have only one chance to make a case for more funding.

Meanwhile, we had also decided to see if we could convince the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) to allow us to stage the Olympic hockey tournament on an
NHL
-sized ice surface, instead of the larger international one. Most of the men’s hockey tournament and some of the women’s would be played at
GM
Place, home of the Vancouver Canucks. Reconfiguring that ice surface to international dimensions was going to cost up to $20 million to get the job done properly, which would entail ripping up cement and taking out seats. If we could convince the
IIHF
’s board to allow us to hold the tournament on the existing ice surface, we would save money, time and headaches.

We also thought it was a more responsible decision that should have been up for debate anyway. It seemed ridiculous to tear apart a perfectly fine structure just to have to put it back together again later. That wasn’t living up to one of our values—sustainability.

In 2004, I flew to Riga, Latvia, where the
IIHF
board was meeting during their world championships, and arrived late the night before the meeting, exhausted. I immediately went to see René Fasel, the
IIHF
president, in his hotel room. He was waiting there for me with his
CEO
, Jan-Ake Edvinsson. Everyone was tired. René sat in his chair in his stocking feet, looking as if he’d rather be in bed than briefing me on what to expect the next day. It was the first time I’d spent serious time with Jan, who was a hockey lifer, a stocky guy with a big face and warm smile. But make no mistake; he was tough as battleship steel.

My conversation with the two helped me frame what I would explain to the board the next day. For instance, they told me that the Russians and some other European countries might resist the idea of keeping the
NHL
ice surface, as they would see it as a move designed to give the North American teams added home-field advantage. My answer to that was simple: most of the world’s top players already played on
NHL
ice. I just needed to be convincing.

It was made clear to me that if the
IIHF
was to give us a break, there would have to be a quid pro quo. In other words, enough of a benefit to calm any anxiety expressed by the Europeans. From my end, that meant giving an outright guarantee that hockey would have a spectacular stage at the Games, and that
IIHF
officials would be treated extremely well and given access to top-notch hotels conveniently located close to the hockey venues. That wasn’t an inducement. It was the least we could do, I figured, given the multimillion-dollar break we wanted them to cut us. Not to mention the fairly radical departure from tradition that the organization would be making.

The next morning, bright and early, I went before the
IIHF
board and laid out our proposal and suggested it was not reasonable to ask an organization to take existing venues, tear them apart for a one-time use and then endure further costs to restore them to their original use. I suggested that it was contrary to our value system and probably contrary to the value system of the
IOC
as well. I went so far as to suggest the
IIHF
would seem heavy-handed and out of touch with the times if it was to press us to deliver wider ice. I wanted to place a burden on them that was too heavy to carry, and to appeal to their social conscience and better judgment. I pitched hard and took my leave. An hour later, I was on a plane for Vancouver.

I thought the discussion went well, but the directors took my presentation under advisement. It wasn’t long, however, before we got word that the
IIHF
was, in principle, okay with our plan to keep
GM
Place as it was, subject to some fine-tuning of our proposal. It was a huge win at a time when we were looking to save every dime we could.

By this point in the project, I had already indicated publicly that although we were performing surgery everywhere we could we were going to need more money for construction than we had indicated in our bid. In a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade in November 2005, I said that with construction costs expected to increase by 50 per cent on comparable major projects and infrastructure, we might need some additional help from government.

Discussions with federal and provincial partners had already started. We had made a detailed submission asking for a lift of $55 million from each. We outlined all the different ways we had trimmed costs, from doing away with our plans to build a temporary broadcast centre in Richmond to reconfiguring cross-country ski trails in the Callaghan Valley southwest of Whistler, and a score of other initiatives. Still, those efforts were mostly overlooked in the ensuing coverage, which focused largely on the call for more funding. The 2002-dollars argument was being ignored.

It bothered us that, even though the construction projects were mostly on schedule and on budget (if you factored in inflation), our message didn’t seem to be getting out. Public confidence in the project was taking a beating. It made no difference that we were outperforming almost every other major project in the province. No matter what we did, it seemed, it was a public relations battle we were losing. The level of scrutiny we faced was intense.