A slow build, but, Pan American Games finally here

The mood just days out from the start of the Pan American Games feels more like a load of inconvenience than grand spectacle. All we’ve heard about in the past week is discontent among commuters on HOV lanes, Pan Am organizers dousing out flames about lowish ticket sales and hoteliers moaning about half-empty occupancy. If you didn’t know any better you’d think Toronto was hosting an Armageddon. It’s much easier to zero in on things that don’t, or won’t work, but what about the good stuff that will come from the Pan Ams?

There are plenty.

Let’s start with Friday night’s opening ceremony at the Skydome. Cirque du Soleil’s one-night-only original production will welcome 40 countries to Toronto – in true Olympic style. Those that didn’t get a ticket will be forced to settle for Nathan Phillips Square where there will be a live feed that will be hosted by Canadian Idol winner Eva Avila and actor Rick Miller. The spectacle at the Skydome, I’m sure, won’t disappoint.

Next are the newest structures that now operate in our city. In the past couple of years, preparation for these games has involved creating spaces for the 7,000 athletes coming to the city. In Scarborough you have the Aquatics Centre, one of the largest centres ever built specifically for the Games. It will host fencing and has an Olympic-sized pool. There’s also a new 350-metre BMX track at Centennial Park in Etobicoke where novice riders will be able to use long after the Games. There’s the York University athletic stadium that will host track and field events. And, you have the Hamilton Pan Am soccer stadium. Most of these facilities aren’t one-hit wonders and, rather, will create opportunities to grow new sports (or, as is the case for the city of Hamilton, give its CFL Tiger-Cats a much-needed new home).

The Globe and Mail's Cathal Kelly wrote about the Pan Ams being why Toronto got passed over for the World Cup, and called the Pan Ams mean one thing – a commuting apocalypse. While soccer’s format is short and more accessible to the public, hosting the Games brings to the city a swathe of different sports we don’t get to see at an elite level: handball, squash, triathlons (normally reserved for coastal cities), water polo and table tennis. Soccer has lulls. Soccer is one-dimensional. There are a total of 51 sports to choose from at the Pan Ams in case you get bored, which, I highly doubt as there is something for everyone.

Torontonians are sobbing about seeing second-tier talent, yet the Games haven’t even started. And while I’d like to say, they are wrong, Pan Am organizers haven’t updated its website with all the Canadians confirmed to perform at the Games. So, who knows who will show up? Jessie Fleming, 17, and Kadiesha Buchanan, 19, (who won best young talent at the World Cup) will be on show during Canada’s soccer matches in Hamilton. You’ll get to see table tennis player Alicia Cote who is 15 years old, the youngest Canadian at the Games. What about the sailing father-son duo of Terry and Evert McLaughlin and the Olympic gold medalists Adam van Koeverden, Eric Lamaze and Rosie MacLennan? If you keep your eyes closed long enough, of course, you won’t find those top tier, hidden gems.

There’s an underlying anxious wait in how these Games will turn out. There’s a consensus that these Games will be a huge flop; there is a small contingent that believe otherwise. Whatever the case, Torontonians should at least give the Games a go, see before judging and take the time to embrace the elite sportsmen and women who call Canada home. Remember: these are the athletes that will form the next Olympic teams. You’ll curse yourself if you don’t seem them up close in their urban, exhibit-like, surroundings.