For a 1994 venue/event/ticket price calendar, call the St. Louis
group at 314-342-1994. I'm behind in my planning, so I just
requested my copy last Thursday. I'll post more details about
event times/days when I get my calendar.
I've been to four Olympic Festivals within the past few years. The
festivals are unique in the wide-range of sports that one's able to
see in about a 10-14 day period. The list of featured sports is
almost over-whelming. Off the top of my head, the following come
to mind: ice hockey, field hockey, lacrosse, figure skating,
speed skating, baseball, soccer, diving, gymnastics, water polo,
team handball, racquetball, boxing, swimming, rowing, hockey on
roller skates, karate, judo, archery, wrestling, basketball,
fencing, and the list goes on ... reasonable ticket prices too.
Recent festivals were:
1987 - Raleigh/Chapel Hill/Durham/Greensboro
My first festival; went to ice hockey only.
1988 - no festival? / Olympics?
1989 - Oklahoma City
Short trip, but good festival. Many nationally known
divers and gymnasts at this festival.
1990 - Minneapolis/St. Paul
An extended visit to The "Twin" Cities; this was back when
the Gophers had a swimming pool in the middle of their
football stadium! This was also my first opportunity to
meet all our great Hockey-L friends that live in Gopher
country. Carol "Cruise Director" White was already in-training
as the 1994 Hockey-L Tour coordinator; she was a great hostess
even back then! This was also when the Mall of America was
nothing but a big red mudhole. Hopefully, Coach Woog doesn't
remember that they used Mariucci as a roller skating venue ...
and in the July heat ... I know why they called it the "old
barn"
1991 - Los Angelos
Stayed home, away from the traffic.
1992 - no festival? / Olympics?
1993 - San Antonio
The Alamo Dome --- a great facility!
1994 - St. Louis
1995 - Denver
Following along on comments by Pam Sweeney, David Weinberg, and
Justin Doherty, the Olympic Festival has it beginings in the late
70's (circa 76). The event used to always be held in Colorado.
Today, it's a fairly big production to host an Olympic Festival;
cities vy for the right to host the event.
As for who competes, this appears to be dependent upon which sport and
what year we're talking about. It seems that each sporting federation
probably has carte blanche to use the competion to whatever purpose best
suits its needs. Sometimes you see collegiate atheletes and sometimes
you see high school atheletes. The demographics vary by sport and
year.
James Bradshaw - one of Hockey-L's Southern correspondents ... the
land where we don't need those "zuchini" machines like they do up
"Nawth" ... a nice John Deere lawnmower keeps our hockey venues
in good shape! ... for Field Hockey that is ... there's not another
variety is there ... ;-)
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