Vancouver View -- B.C. Place Loses Roof; Widow Waits for Condolences

Vancouver’s skyline -- and its Olympic stadium -- will never be the same.

The air-supported, fabric roof at 1983-opened B.C. Place Stadium was deflated May 4 to make way for a $444 million retractable roof.

The 60,000-seat stadium hosted the opening, closing and victory ceremonies for the Vancouver Olympics. In spring 2008, the provincial government considered replacing the roof before the Games, but decided to delay the work until afterward because of cost worries. Replacement became a priority because of the Jan. 5, 2007 rip and collapse following a snowstorm. Management neglected to heat the roof.

"I don’t know that our (Olympic) bid would have been successful if we hadn’t had a facility like this available to us and certainly I don’t think we would’ve built one specifically for the Games," said David Podmore, chairman of B.C. Pavilion Corporation, the taxpayer-owned company that operates the building.

The total bill for the retractable roof and renovations is $546 million. It was originally announced as $354 million in January 2009.

Podmore and B.C. tourism minister Kevin Krueger deactivated the fan system at 11 a.m. Within 48 minutes, the roof disappeared from the skyline and was inverted. Most of the fabric will be sent to Minneapolis for repurposing into tarps, bags and floor coverings. A portion will be kept at the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame.

Montreal’s Olympic Stadium opened unfinished in 1976. Its retractable roof malfunctioned and was replaced with a fixed system. Toronto’s Rogers Centre, formerly the SkyDome, opened in 1989 as the first fully functional retractable roof stadium in North America. It will host ceremonies for the 2015 Pan American Games.

Widow Speaks Out

The widow of an Olympic Bus Network driver who died after a heart attack at the wheel Feb. 22 said VANOC never contacted her to offer condolences.

"Their priorities had to be to make sure everythingwent good for the competitors, and not worry about just a bus driver," said Jeanette Roberge. "I didn’t expect to hear from them."

Her 71-year-old husband Dale Roberge had been assigned a day before his death to shuttle other drivers between the bus yard and their motels. He was driving five other drivers before dawn Feb. 22 when he suffered the fatal heart attack. One of the other drivers quickly steered the bus to safety.

The Roberges were career bus drivers from Minneapolis who also drove at the 2002 Games. They arrived in Vancouver 10 days earlier and were driving decommissioned transit buses on the route between Lonsdale Quay and Cypress Mountain and staying with other drivers at a hotel in Langley, B.C. They were hoping to save money for a trip to Australia, but Dale died three weeks before their 50th wedding anniversary.

"He was a sweet, humble person, just a darling person," Jeannette said.

Gameday Management president Tony Vitrano said VANOC paid to ship Roberge’s body to Minneapolis where a funeral was held March 5. The RCMP declined to release Roberge’s name, citing the family’s wish for privacy. Jeanette, however, said she was never asked.

Roberge was the only known Games worker to die during Vancouver 2010.

Fan-to-Fan Patience

Thousands of people who sold tickets through Vancouver2010.com are supposed to receive checks from VANOC in the first week of May. The fan-to-fan marketplace was set-up to thwart scalpers and to help VANOC earn revenue. Prices were not limited, but VANOC took a 20% cut of each transaction. It originally said payments would be delivered in April.

Checks are also on the way for a few hundred people owed refunds for cancelled Cypress or Paralympic alpine tickets, said vice-president of communications Renee Smith-Valade.

With reporting from Bob Mackin in Vancouver.