MONTREAL CALEIDOSCOPE OR 100 HOURS WITH A DEAR FRIEND.
Sketch Two: Famous Sports Houses.
The local people call it “The Big O” - because its famous white slanting roof looks like this very letter. It is famous because no booklet devoted to the city would ever omit a picture of the Olympic stadium - and on those pictures the Big O does look different and gorgeous at the same time. The frosty reality of a city suburb made it somewhat less conspicous, while the edifice itself was almost lost amongst Biodome (a scientific museum) and several surrounding offices. When we finally found our way in, it turned out that the same building hosted an observation tower.
By paying for an access to the tower, I was at the same time paying my due to the old tradition. It is actually well worth doing by the end of a visit, on getting acquainted with most prominent city sights. As it was, I absolutely couldn’t tell roofs and spires apart, and my only consolation was seeing the Big O from above.
Fortunately, the tour around the Olympic stadium proper proved to be much more gratifying. Even such routine objects as a stadium model or several coloured pictures shot during the Olympic competitions, felt somewhat special. One of them featured the notoriously renown East German swimming team - the Dream Team of the swimming world in 1970s winning each and every competition by a country mile. Their pictures frequented the sportsmagazines of the epoch but seeing them these days - and no more than a couple of meters from the pool itself where they had actually performed - did send several chills down my spinal cord, and I realize that this sentiment will be totally wasted on all non-sportsfans. As to the rest, simply imagine the legendary Kornelia Ender with a beaming smile and huge muscles on the top of the podium once located right around the corner. We do know today that those amazing winning streaks had probably been enhanced by doping forced upon the athletes by their coaches and doctors representing the anti-human social system. The former Goddesses have become miserable middle-aged women suing their former employers for the ruined health and stolen fame. A truly sad story but even the sadness can’t diminish the aura of greatness associated with the Olympic swimming competitions.
There actually was more sadness (the empty main arena once holding as many as 74000 spectators and hosting the two principal Ceremonies of the Games - today it is occasionally used for rock-concerts) and more greatness. The latter hung all over that very Olympic swimming complex with its 10 pools of different sizes, diving boards and even badminton courts teeming with children and buzzing with excitement before our very eyes. The courts have replaced a whole spectators sector, but even nowadays around 10000 people can jam in for a diving competition or a waterpolo game. And it was too torturously easy to imagine the water of the main pool boiled by breath and shouts of 22000 spectators urging the athletes on in the remote (as seen from today) 1976…
Sadness and greatness…Montreal has made me believe that it might well be a generic name for many sports if not all of them. At least, as far as I was concerned, I found both whereever I went - though in different proportions. It was almost all sadness in the Pepsi Forum, the old house of the famous Montreal Canadiens. It had seen no less than 24 Stanley Cups but nowadays the place has been totally rebuilt and turned into an entertainment centre full of shops and movie halls. It looked like the National Game was totally and ruthlessly banished from the place it had been associated with for so long. And yet, ice-hockey has in fact been symbolically preserved on the entrance floor, in a little corner right near the entrance. The memorial consists of three separate fragments thrown together and forming an unusual composition of the modern art: a piece of the ice-arena drawn on the floor, a penalty box with a plastic figure of a hockey-player in it (the poor guy seems to be condemned for Eternity!) and a segment of the stadium filled with spectators seats. At first, all seats but one were empty, and I was surprised to see the only visitor behave as if he was watching a game right now. The burly man in a hockey shirt was half-jumping towards the arena with his mouth wide open and his right fist punching the air. A moment later my jaw dropped really low because I suddenly realized that this man was as real as his counterpart in the penalty box! A charming fake. Several people around seemed to share my view of the “fan” because they began streaming in and taking the seats around him. Some of them opened a book or spread out a paper, a woman answered her cellphone…Life was going on as it would in a break of a match. We followed the others and took our seats. The illusion couldn’t have been more complete. I was feeling spellbound - the sadness of the situation was gone, and the greatness of a fleeting magic slowly crept in and filled the space around…
We followed the game to its new home, the Bell Centre, and the picture was quite the opposite there. Greatness was clearly prevailing though it was greatness of a somewhat different kind. First of all we had a guided tour for only the two of us - and that was great! As were the spacious guest rooms hosting the local players’ family members and friends during the game intervals (in fact, there is a special kindergarden where the kids are being watched and taken care of by a qualified “babysitter”). Great players were looking at us from the team pictures, and one of them featured only the great captains scattered throughout generations. The upper levels of the building (up to 27 meters high) provided us with great views of the shining rink (though I personally would prefer to watch a game from a rugged bench distanced from the ice by a couple of inches). All that said, a grain of sadness was there too. It hid in the corporate boxes where big bumps - who couldn’t care less about the game - come to show off in front of their colleagues and clients. However, the most part of sadness hovered over the empty building which is destined to stay empty for the rest of this lockout season. This gloomy prospect made it all too similar to the notorious Icy Palace of the vicious Northern Queen…
The local people call it “The Big O” - because its famous white slanting roof looks like this very letter. It is famous because no booklet devoted to the city would ever omit a picture of the Olympic stadium - and on those pictures the Big O does look different and gorgeous at the same time. The frosty reality of a city suburb made it somewhat less conspicous, while the edifice itself was almost lost amongst Biodome (a scientific museum) and several surrounding offices. When we finally found our way in, it turned out that the same building hosted an observation tower.
By paying for an access to the tower, I was at the same time paying my due to the old tradition. It is actually well worth doing by the end of a visit, on getting acquainted with most prominent city sights. As it was, I absolutely couldn’t tell roofs and spires apart, and my only consolation was seeing the Big O from above.
Fortunately, the tour around the Olympic stadium proper proved to be much more gratifying. Even such routine objects as a stadium model or several coloured pictures shot during the Olympic competitions, felt somewhat special. One of them featured the notoriously renown East German swimming team - the Dream Team of the swimming world in 1970s winning each and every competition by a country mile. Their pictures frequented the sportsmagazines of the epoch but seeing them these days - and no more than a couple of meters from the pool itself where they had actually performed - did send several chills down my spinal cord, and I realize that this sentiment will be totally wasted on all non-sportsfans. As to the rest, simply imagine the legendary Kornelia Ender with a beaming smile and huge muscles on the top of the podium once located right around the corner. We do know today that those amazing winning streaks had probably been enhanced by doping forced upon the athletes by their coaches and doctors representing the anti-human social system. The former Goddesses have become miserable middle-aged women suing their former employers for the ruined health and stolen fame. A truly sad story but even the sadness can’t diminish the aura of greatness associated with the Olympic swimming competitions.
There actually was more sadness (the empty main arena once holding as many as 74000 spectators and hosting the two principal Ceremonies of the Games - today it is occasionally used for rock-concerts) and more greatness. The latter hung all over that very Olympic swimming complex with its 10 pools of different sizes, diving boards and even badminton courts teeming with children and buzzing with excitement before our very eyes. The courts have replaced a whole spectators sector, but even nowadays around 10000 people can jam in for a diving competition or a waterpolo game. And it was too torturously easy to imagine the water of the main pool boiled by breath and shouts of 22000 spectators urging the athletes on in the remote (as seen from today) 1976…
Sadness and greatness…Montreal has made me believe that it might well be a generic name for many sports if not all of them. At least, as far as I was concerned, I found both whereever I went - though in different proportions. It was almost all sadness in the Pepsi Forum, the old house of the famous Montreal Canadiens. It had seen no less than 24 Stanley Cups but nowadays the place has been totally rebuilt and turned into an entertainment centre full of shops and movie halls. It looked like the National Game was totally and ruthlessly banished from the place it had been associated with for so long. And yet, ice-hockey has in fact been symbolically preserved on the entrance floor, in a little corner right near the entrance. The memorial consists of three separate fragments thrown together and forming an unusual composition of the modern art: a piece of the ice-arena drawn on the floor, a penalty box with a plastic figure of a hockey-player in it (the poor guy seems to be condemned for Eternity!) and a segment of the stadium filled with spectators seats. At first, all seats but one were empty, and I was surprised to see the only visitor behave as if he was watching a game right now. The burly man in a hockey shirt was half-jumping towards the arena with his mouth wide open and his right fist punching the air. A moment later my jaw dropped really low because I suddenly realized that this man was as real as his counterpart in the penalty box! A charming fake. Several people around seemed to share my view of the “fan” because they began streaming in and taking the seats around him. Some of them opened a book or spread out a paper, a woman answered her cellphone…Life was going on as it would in a break of a match. We followed the others and took our seats. The illusion couldn’t have been more complete. I was feeling spellbound - the sadness of the situation was gone, and the greatness of a fleeting magic slowly crept in and filled the space around…
We followed the game to its new home, the Bell Centre, and the picture was quite the opposite there. Greatness was clearly prevailing though it was greatness of a somewhat different kind. First of all we had a guided tour for only the two of us - and that was great! As were the spacious guest rooms hosting the local players’ family members and friends during the game intervals (in fact, there is a special kindergarden where the kids are being watched and taken care of by a qualified “babysitter”). Great players were looking at us from the team pictures, and one of them featured only the great captains scattered throughout generations. The upper levels of the building (up to 27 meters high) provided us with great views of the shining rink (though I personally would prefer to watch a game from a rugged bench distanced from the ice by a couple of inches). All that said, a grain of sadness was there too. It hid in the corporate boxes where big bumps - who couldn’t care less about the game - come to show off in front of their colleagues and clients. However, the most part of sadness hovered over the empty building which is destined to stay empty for the rest of this lockout season. This gloomy prospect made it all too similar to the notorious Icy Palace of the vicious Northern Queen…