BC Place: The new big uh-oh?

This ex-Montrealer would like to state for the record that when I said I hoped my new town might become a bit more like la belle ville, this was not what I had in mind.

As much as smoked meat sandwiches and two-cheek kisses, Montreal has become known for its disastrous Stade Olympique. Built for the 1976 Summer Olympics, the concrete monstrosity despised by most Montrealers -- aka "The Big Owe," the toilet bowl, etc -- has pretty much been responsible for every innovation in the small field of covered stadium disasters.

In 1999, a build-up of snow on the stade's roof caused a 400-square meter patch of the new $37-million Kevlar-coated roof to cave in, sending tons of snow onto workers setting up the auto show below. (None were hurt.) Sound familiar? "A coworker called me over to her window," Gabriela Roberts told Beyond Robson of BC Place's high noon implosion. "It was crazy, there was this big piece flapping in the wind, it sounded like gunshots! And then it collapsed, just like that."

Is BC Place following the cursed path of Montreal's Big Owe? The story of the once and future homes of the Olympic games after the jump.

(Before-and-after photos by flickr user Uncleweed.)

1973: Work begins in East End Montreal on the Olympic Park. Plans drawn up by French architect/lunatic Roger Taillebert call for a 574-foot inclined tower -- the tallest in the world -- standing over a UFO-like oval stadium 3,000-feet around. Most fantastically, the stadium roof will retract into the top of the tower. Montreal mayor/lunatic Jean Drapeau confidently predicts the games "can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby."

1976: The Queen opens the Montreal Olympics in a half-finished stadium. A strike, corruption and inspired levels of incompetence had caused substantial delays, causing organisers to even consider relocating the games. Despite being unfinished, the cost of the stadium has already doubled to $250-million.

1977: The stade welcomes the Montreal Expos, Major League Baseball's first club outside the United States. The Expos -- nicknamed nos amours by their long-suffering fans -- would be the stadium's main tenant until sold and relocated to Washington, DC in 2004. Many would blame the stadium's sterile atmosphere and remote location for the team's failure.

1978: In Vancouver, BC cabinet minister Sam Bawlf proposes "Transpo '86", a "communications and transportation fair" built on the abandoned CPR train yard at the eastern end of False Creek. Harold Innis smiles. Local hewer-of-wood and seller-of-cars Jim Pattison becomes CEO.

1980: The Lions decide to build a new indoor stadium downtown and leave the east end's Empire Stadium, site of the 1954 Commonwealth games and the famous "miracle mile." Plans call for "a translucent Teflon dome" atop a 60,000 seat stadium costing $150-million. Meanwhile, the $1-billion Expo86 development involves the biggest land swap in the province's history between governments, CP and private developers -- BC Premier WR Bennett proposes to pay for it all by selling much of the province's northeast reserves of coal to Japan.

1982: The stade's roof is finally moved from a warehouse in France to Montreal but it will be six more years until its installed. Meanwhile, in BC, the government announces a then-astronomical deficit of $730 million, caused largely by the Expo86/BC Place development. About 100,000 workers go on strike, halting construction for five months.

1983: BC Place, Canada's first covered stadium -- and the largest air-powered domed stadium in the world -- opens. Officials are pleased to report the stadium came in on budget at $123 million. The Lions rave about the state-of-the-art fake turf (made in Germany) and lack of rain. The roof is kept aloft by air pressure created by computer-controlled fans. Officials estimate it would take six hours for the facility to deflate. That year's Grey Cup, held under the new dome, was the first to make more than $1 million in ticket sales.

1984: Pope John Paul II visits BC Place -- but his crowd size is surpassed later in the year by The Jackson's, who set the record for most people at an event in Vancouver's history. To celebrate, two Richmond teens break into the band's plane parked at YVR. No Jesus juice is found.

1987: In Montreal, the tower reaches its final height of 92 metres. Later in the year, it would be implicated as an accomplice in the death of another Montreal sports team, as the CFL's Alouettes (version 1.0) go bust.

1988: A dozen years after the games, the roof is on in Montreal and retracted for the first time. But after numerous problems and repeated failures -- and fears from engineers that the roof will never hold a full weight of snow -- officials freeze the roof and decide to replace it with a permanent structure.

1989: The BC government admits it could have made $500 million when it sold land to build BC Place -- but only charged developers $130 million. Critics call it the biggest give away in the province's history.

1990: The third Gay Games opens in BC Place with 7000 athletes 29 sports. Abbotsford fundamentalists are appalled; lightning does not strike anyone dead.

1991: In Quebec, A 50-ton chunk of concrete falls off a support beam, closing the stadium. The Expos play their remaining home games on the road.

1992: Metallica and Guns n' Roses play the Big O; after Axl announces his band won't take the stage, enraged fans riot. Montrealers are disappointed the stadium survives the metalhead mayhem.

1997: In Montreal, officials decide on a new roof design and okay construction plans; a year later, the old roof comes off, making the stadium al fresco. Baseball fans wear parkas and toques to early-season games. Later in the year, a U2 concert force the Alouettes (version 2.0) to play a playoff game at downtown's Molson Stadium. Fans are so thrilled with the new venue the team relocates permanently.

1999: One year after the Big O's new orange-colour Kevlar roof is installed, it rips under the snow load. The auto show moves away, never to return; to this day, the stadium is closed for four months during winter as officials cannot guarantee safety.

2002: The stade plays the role of Baltimore's Camden Yards in the spy thriller The Sum of all Fears. Montrealers flock to the flick and cheer when the stadium is nuked by neo-Nazi terrorists.

2004: The stade's FieldTurf -- a new kind of AstroTurf -- is sold off to BC Place. (Omen?) It is used in 2005 for the 2005 Grey Cup, won by Edmonton -- and lost by Montreal.

2006: In December, the Quebec government announces the Olympic games are finally paid off, two decades later, with a final cost of $1.5-billion. Major conventions and trade shows are hosted downtown at a new convention centre; Jean Drapeau's baby is only used, occasionally, for monster truck events. In Vancouver, BC Place is used to film the Fantastic Four, part of the stadium's $10.6 in revenue -- meaning BC taxpayers, the stadium's owners, spend $3 million to cover its $14 million in annual operating costs.

2007:A rip deflates BC Place. Stadium officials promise it will be reopen for a late-January gardening show.