46 — Wednesday, April 29, 1998 — North Shore News Vancouver Lawn Bowling Club. Bell is the club’s honorary president while North Vancouver City Mayor Jack - north shore news "Bell bowls NORTH Vancouver District Mayor Don Bell bowls the opening bail of the 75th anniversary season of the North Loucks serves as the honorary vice president. The club is gearing up for its Canada Day Lions Gate Cup, _ when’ all Proceeds are donated to Lions Gate Hospital. dE you's ve ever won- -dered where inflation - has taken us in the 44 "years since Roger , Bannister and John .. Tandy. ran the Miracle -.Mile at long-gone Empire Stadium, con- “sider the following: Those 1954 “Commonwealth Games cost - $2.35 million to stage and turned a profit of $32, 500. The upcoming 2002 Pacific Games, headed up by North » Van's Bill Winnett, are pro- jected to cost $148 million. My elementary math tells me that’s 63 times as much. [ll ” wager all us oldies who saw Bannister win that race aren’s making 63 times as much now as we did then. Bur that’s not the point of - today’s p,ose picce, the point ~-being that by current cost standards of international sports and cultural clambakes, $148 million is strictly econo- my class. He't, combine the four biggest peyrells in the NHL and they’ have paid out that much this season with 20 games left in the reg- ular schedule. _fAside from inflation, there are’a couple of other reasons for the higher cost of hosting this event. Such as 43 coun- tries taking part instead of 24; the care and feeding of 4, 000° athletes and officials instead of 790. But still, as international * gaics go and if the organizers don’t go more than 50% over budget, a palpable bargain. For instance, Toronto is already talking nwo billion if it lands the 2008 Summer “TS iympics. Arthur Griffiths is projecting close to a billion if Vancouver and Whistler get the 2010 Winter Olympics. Next year’s Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, projected for $135 million, are running, well over that estimate. a: -ge | have no numbers for the Francophone Games, also a 2001 event, scheduled for Quebec City. Given the Montreal experience of 1976, I suspect they will be consid- erable. Whereas the Olympics have been around for a centu- ry and the Pan-Ams for half a century, both the Francophone and Pacific car- nivals are fairly recent addi- tions to Jockstrap International, Inc. Indeed, the 2001 production here will be only the third trip to the post for the Pacific Games. In case you hadn’t heard, they are for countries border- ing on the Pacific — from Chile to Australia in the south, Canada and Russia in the north and everyone in between, including such major players as China and the U.S.A. Given the large land masses of the Srates, Canada, Russia and Australia, certain anomalies crop up. For instance, athletes from Atlantic seaboard cities — Halifax, St. John’s, Boston, New York, Miami —- who “may never have seen the Pacitic except on TV — will be competing. The same for Aussies who live in Perth and look out on the Indian Ocean. And how about the men and women from the Baltic Sea city of St. Petersburg or Crimea on the Black Sea? So, as far as geographic Games go, the Pacitic model should have a pretty impres- sive lincup of athletes in the year following the Sydney Olympics. Fitteen disciplines, 13 of hem Olympic sports. Rugby and table tennis are the odd ones out. But given the Lower Mainland’s ethnic Chinese population, table ten- nis could be one of the biggest draws of all. Given the two weeks of June 16 to 29, there'll be no problem billenng the athletes in UBC student housing, close to the UBC pool, which is to be upgraded for the swimming and diving compe- ditions. Capital expenditures are listed at $10 million, which seems a little unrcalis- tic, given the fact there is no suitable (25,000 seats or more) stadium hercabouts for track and field, soccer and rugby. Also, little tisne in which to acquire one and few ideas about how. Winnett, a sports junkie if ever there was one, is confi- dent ail problems will be solved. Before moving from Toronto and on to the North Shore three decades ago, he was an Argonauts director. Our here, he was the chief financial officer of the Canucks in their fledgling vears and later was a B.C. Lions director and assistant to the publisher at the Vancouver Sun, Given that opening day is just over three years away, add eternal optimist to his credentials. But at least he and his group do have some Games to stage. Not until they're over — sometime late in 2001 — will Toronto learn whether or not it gets the Olympics in 2008. Don’t be surprised if they go elsewhere. The International Olympic Committee is bound and determined to spread them around; to take them to conti- nents where they haven’r been before — ie., Africa and South America. If Cape Town or Bucnos Aires have credible bids, Toronto’s $50 million sales campaign likely will be for nought. But a litte birdie tells me the Canadian Olympic Association, anxious to open an unobstructed path for the Toronto bid, just may kibosh Canada’s 2010 Winter Olympics overture and move it back to 2014. By which me none of us who were at the Bannister-Landy Mile will be around to really give a hoor, JULY & AUGUST » SUMMER CAMPS 1992 LOWER MAINLAND BCYS & GIRLS 5-17 The No. 1 soccer school in B.C. is proud to announce their 1998 Summer Program. After 20 successful years, our camps now stretch from Chilliwack to Whistler, Okanagan to Kamloops. The main objective of our program is to show each player how to fuily enjoy the game through an exciting, enjoyable soccer environment. 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