PASSING THE FLAME : Calgarians Fan Spirit of Olympics

Plans were announced during the recent Calgary Exhibition and Stampede to take what residents call, “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth,” on the road to Toronto and, perhaps, other outposts of civilization.

It would be better, some think, to give the Calgary Stamped ers a one-way ticket to anywhere.

The Stampeders are the hapless Canadian Football League entry that has been doing little to elevate Calgary as a major sports center.

Less than two years ago, this was the host city for the most successful Winter Olympics. Organizers maintain that the Games drew about 180 million spectators--fans who went to more than one event were counted at each event--and turned a profit of $260 million, most of which was distributed to the International Olympic Committee and national sports associations.

This year, the Calgary Flames, after selling 18,000 season tickets, brought hockey’s Stanley Cup to town--the city’s first major sports trophy (the Stampeders won the CFL championship in 1971).

And the Stampede, dating to 1912, goes on and on as a frolicking fixture of frontier tradition. It hit a peak of 1,213,646 in attendance in ’88.

The Stampeders drew only 197,775 for nine games last season.

The Olympic flame burns on at Canada Olympic Park on the west end of town. But after the flame, and after the Flames, does Calgary turn back into a cowtown again?

Many Canadians don’t consider it to be a cowtown at all, but most of them live west of Toronto, the cosmopolitan center of commerce in Ontario.

Calgary lies on Trans-Canada Highway 1, about 150 miles north of the U.S. border on the rolling plains of southern Alberta. With 670,000 people, it is Canada’s fourth-largest city, after Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

Vistors to Canada generally are better acquainted with the three other cities--or were until the Winter Olympics.

Frank King, the businessman who chaired the organizing committee for the Games, said, “It isn’t often a city is given the chance to show its stuff and stage a world-stature event. A lot of people were surprised when they came here. They found it’s not only a modern city but a friendly city. Our people are natural hosts. They still have a pioneer spirit.”

With that spirit, they were undaunted by the prospect of staging the Games.

Doug Mitchell, a Calgary lawyer and a former CFL commissioner who assisted with the city’s bid for the Winter Olympics, said, “I haven’t seen a city with the extent of volunteer spirit that puts on the Stampede every year.

“The same spirit was there for the Olympics. There were more volunteers than jobs for them.”

King said that IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch told him, “ ‘The Olympic spirit was reborn in Calgary.’ ”

Samaranch also was pleased when $110 million of the profits--the first turned by any Winter Olympics--went to the IOC.

But that might be about as good as it gets. There won’t be another Winter Olympics here soon, the Flames won’t win the Stanley Cup every year, and the Stampeders--winless in two practice games and two regular-season games until upsetting British Columbia at Vancouver Thursday night--seem doomed to mediocrity.

Calgary does have a highly successful minor league baseball operation, the Cannons, a Seattle Mariners farm club that attracts about 4,000 a night to 7,500-seat Foothill Park with low prices and effective, family-style promotions.

“The games are secondary,” said Tom Keyser, a Calgary Herald columnist. “The players are from somewhere else and want to be somewhere else--the majors. But the franchise has a fabulous success story.”

There also are the Calgary 88s, who are regarded as a model franchise in the World Basketball League for players 6-foot-5 and shorter. The club averages about 3,500 in attendance in the Saddledome.

Although Toronto and Montreal have had major league baseball for years, not even Calgary’s most enthusiastic boosters believe it has much hope of obtaining a franchise.

The city lacks a major league stadium and, given its climate, would certainly need a dome.

“But the stadium would be the least of the problems,” King said. “I think the fans would support it, but realistically, it’s not in the foreseeable future.”

King said he asked Peter Ueberroth--his counterpart with Los Angeles’ 1984 Olympics and later the commissioner of baseball--about the possibility.

“(Ueberroth) said, ‘It’s a nice thought, but quite frankly, there are many other cities (more qualified).’ ”

There was a thought that an Alberta franchise could nearly double its base of support by sharing a franchise with Edmonton, a 3 1/2-hour drive north.

“Wouldn’t work,” Mitchell said. “Too much rivalry.”

Do you think Edmonton was jealous when Calgary staged the Winter Olympics? Do you know what Edmontonians said when Calgarians bragged about their Stanley Cup?

“We’ve won four ,” they said.

The CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos also have won six Grey Cups and qualified for the playoffs 18 straight seasons, while the Stampeders have reached postseason play only four times since ’71.

Said Mitchell: “One thing (Calgarians) can’t stand is losing to Edmonton.”

It happened again in a CFL game last week, 54-4, at Calgary. And with five Stampeder starters out with injuries, the outlook for the rest of the season is dreadful.

The club changes coaches with every shift in the weather, but it probably doesn’t need a coach as much as it needs a Sgt. Preston to lead it out of the wilderness.

Or they could use another franchise fixer such as Jim Finks, who was general manager of the Stampeders in the ‘60s. Finks, president and general manager of the New Orleans Saints, might soon be tied up in a new job as commissioner of the National Football League.

According to a report, the current--and curiously popular--general manager, Normie Kwong, was considering addressing the sad state of affairs by leaving town for three weeks next month. Kwong also is a minority owner of the Flames and could accompany the hockey team on its trip to the Soviet Union.

McMahon Stadium, site of the Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies, got a $15.8-million face lift for the Games but remains a relic, open to Arctic winds at both ends. And with an average of only 21,975 a game showing up for the Stampeders last season, there is no demand to enlarge its 38,000-seat capacity.

King said: “I just joined the board of the Stampeders to see if I could help solve that problem. I think one problem is that the fans are very selective here.”

Worse, the Stampeders, community-owned and run by a board, seem to live under a curse--they lost their top two quarterbacks in their first two exhibition games-- and haven’t helped themselves with effective organization or promotion.

Allan Maki, a sports columnist for the Herald, said the club operates from “a blueprint for disaster. As soon as the Flames came to town (from Atlanta in ‘83), the Stampeders’ problems began. (The Flames) were doing things the Stamps never did.”

Keyser, though, thinks the potential is apparent.

“Calgary is a fanatical sports town,” he said. “When they won the Grey Cup in ‘48, some of the yahoos went down to Toronto and rode a horse into the Royal York Hotel.”

But it’s that same high-spirited, uninhibited attitude that glitzy Torontonians don’t seem to understand about Calgarians.

When the Toronto folk heard that a limited version of the Stampede was headed their way, animal rights groups there immediately protested the whole idea of a rodeo for inflicting pain and abuse on innocent creatures.

True, horses have been killed in the popular chuck wagon races, a calf’s neck was broken this summer in the roping competition, and a bull rider lost an eye.

But they accept those things. One cowboy competing here suffered a broken leg--and didn’t know it for two weeks.

The day after the bull rider’s accident, the rodeo announcer said, “Thank God it’s only the loss of an eye. He’ll probably be back with a patch, riding, in a couple of weeks.”

Attorney Mitchell grew up in Calgary, lived in Toronto for five years when he was CFL commissioner and returned to Calgary last January.

“I saw some changes when I came back,” he said.

The Stampede hadn’t changed much--the midway was bigger and louder than ever, featuring every hokey attraction from high divers to thrill rides to country music to a guy playing, “I Love Paris,” on a tuba.

But is this what Calgary wants to be?

Maki said: “The city is caught between its Stampede image and a desire to be upscale cultural. I think the city is still trying to find its image.”

Surely, after every Stampede the cowboy hats and boots go back into the closet for another year, replaced by three-piece suits and pumps.

“I think this has to be the yuppie capital of Canada,” Keyser said. “The business section of our paper is the No. 1 read. A lot of these people came from Toronto because they couldn’t afford to buy a house there.

“I think Calgary is pretty sophisticated. We all watch David Letterman. All the silly American trends come up here.”

Also a lot of silly Americans. About 10% of the city’s citizens are from south of the border. They came for the oil business and to follow the shift of corporate headquarters for related enterprises.

“The oil is what makes us tick,” said Paul Rosenberg, publicity and promotion manager for the Stampede, pointing out that Calgary is more than cowboys.

And, Rosenberg said, the Stampede is “more than just a rodeo. We’re not taking the Stampede to Toronto. We’re taking some of the most interesting elements, such as the rodeo and the free pancake breakfasts.”

But some locals expressed fear that the city will be misrepresented. A Herald editorial said: “It’s almost certain to turn out badly . . . (because) it can’t recreate the entire mood of a city,” and snooty Torontonians would be given new fodder for jokes about their country cousins from the West, confirming their opinions.

But a town with main thoroughfares named Deerfoot Trail and Crowchild Trail might have trouble convincing anyone it’s sophisticated enough to support major league sports.

Can pro football make it big here?

“I think this city would go crazy if it had a competitive team,” Mitchell said.

A larger question is, would Calgary be willing to shed its cowtown image to go big league?

Probably not.

“I think everybody is kind of secretly proud of it,” Keyser said.