DU Has Ties To Denver's 2022 Winter Olympic Bid

by Kevin Vaughn

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper & Denver Mayor Michael Hancock have formed an exploratory committee of business and civic leaders to consider the potential benefits, ramifications and costs involved in bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The 22-member committee will be headed by Don Elliman, from the University of Colorado Medical School, and Anne Warhover, chief executive of the Colorado Health Foundation.

Among its tasks will be to determine not only the costs to bid for the Games but to assess potential venues for the various competitions, including those which would have to be built.

Among those who will be named to the committee are Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom, attorneys Steve Farber & Cole Finegan, Paralympian Sara Will, former Breckenridge Mayor Ernie Blake, Vail Valley Foundation chairman Harry Frampton, and Christine Riordan, dean of the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are DU connections on the non-boosterism side off this issue too. Dick Lamm, please come back. Drive a (successfull) stake through the heart of this sucker.
S11...

Anonymous said...

If Denver did ever get chosen, Magness Arena would more than likely host most, if not all the ice hockey events. Pepsi Center would be used for figure skating, and places like Budweiser Events Center, World Arena would handle speed skating, curling

Anonymous said...

Almost all recent Olympics have been net positives for the cities that host. Ask LA, Seoul, Barcelona, Meribel, Lillehammer, Atlanta, Nagano, Sydney, Salt Lake, Turin, Beijing and Vancouver if hostng the games was worth it, and you'll generally hear that it was worth it. Beijing and Athens did overbuild, but the long and short of it is that modern Olympics and the associated infrastructure benefits (highways, airports, transit, housing, parks, etc.) are usually worth doing.

Denver has 80% of the venues it needs, and DU woill certainly be a key part of any bid. Magness would likely be expanded into a 12,000 seat hockey venue by pulling out the east wall an adding a new grandstand similar to the westside. I would expect DU would also use the oppotunity to host the Olympic village by replacing Halls and Towers with new housing the would become new dorms after the games

Anonymous said...

The big new arena Denver would need to build from scratch is s indooor speedskating oval.

If Denver did get the Olympic bid, perhaps DU could house the new 10,000 seat speekskating arena (and get it built for free via the Olympic bid) on campus and convert it to a hockey arena after Games, leaving Magness as a primary hoops facility. The only issue is where to put the new arena? The best location is probably where DU parking lot 108 is now, just off Buchtel, near the highway.

old pio said...

Why on earth would the IOC give Denver a second chance to cornhole the Olympics? We had our chance, and we blew it.

dggoddard said...

$$$$$

Anonymous said...

The 1976 bid was a long, long time ago, and most of those IOC memebers from 1975 are no longer on the IOC.

The Olymcpics are likely to come back to the USA at some point, especially after the IOC slaps to the NYC and Chicago bids for 2012 and 2016. We won't get a summer games for a while longer, but Denver is the best city in America to stage a Winter Games. We have, by far, the best combination of sports facilities, mountains and urban amenities of any city in the US.

old pio said...

Maybe you're right. Maybe you're kidding yourself. Who knows? The IOC had no difficulty in slapping the President of the United States (and his in person importunings) around like a Colfax hooker. And neutral observers thought Chicago had a really good bid package. Stateside Olympics are good for TV ratings (the IOC's not so concerned about ratings in Uzbekibekibekistan).

There was another little blip of ingterest in putting in a Denver bid when Craig Patrick was AD. It went nowhere.

In '76, the plan was to use Halls and Towers as the Olympic village, with some competition in the DU Arena. Many more events on the program now. Do we have two large ski jump hills in close proximity? And whoever said we'd need to build an indoor skeed skating facility had it right.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have an Olympics in Denver, with brand new dorms as Olympic Village and the speed skating oval on campus and all the rest. But these people on the IOC are generally uber-weathy, with long memories. And the most valuable thing they have is the designation of a city as Olympic host. At this point I'm not optimistic that they can get past the way we screwed 'em, all those years ago. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

The way money is thrown around at an Olympics is truly astonishing.
And some of that money would doubtless inure to the benefit of DU. Plus all the publicity wouldn't hurt.

The IOC does things its own way. As an example, for many years the chairman of the hockey federation was "Bunny" Ahearn, from hockey crazy UK. The committee may be more democratic that it was when I was involved in an Olympics, but you'll still see lots of barons, princes, dukes and field marshalls on the list. The beloved Uday Hussein was chairman of Iraq's Olympic committee for several years. And as we learned with Salt Lake City, many of these chumps have their hands out, looking for Rolex watches, cash, and honies.

So let's get a bid package together and hope we can get the right to represent the USA. Then just pray the quality of the bid overcomes whatever residual resentment of Denver remains. It's not me who needs to be convinced about the appropriateness of Denver hosting the games. It's the IOC.

Anonymous said...

Didn’t want to ruin your weekend Old P but JoePa has admitted that he knew inappropriate action was taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster’ in 2002.


http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Joe-Paterno-told-a-grand-jury-he-8216-knew-ina?urn=ncaaf-wp11597

Anonymous said...

Also, like the did in in Atlanta, winning an Olympic bid would require completing / expanding the light rail, and for sure the I-70 Ski Train.

old pio said...

Why don't you save that shit for an appropriate venue? Or is jacking me up a hobby or an obsession? Either way, it's inappropriate and you're an obvious loser. Go phuck yourself.

Anonymous said...

Old P's idiotic defense of Sandusky and JoePa makes you wonder about all his statements and conclusions.