THUNDER BAY – It took at least three attempts to land the 1995 World Nordic Ski Championship, marking just the second time the event was held outside of Europe.
Twenty-five years later and the memories of the event are still fresh and ready for a re-telling. On Saturday, some of the 1,500 volunteers and a few of the participants in the event will get that chance at a 25th anniversary celebration.
Event co-chair Sue Prodaniuk said the reunion, which will be held at the DaVinci Centre, is a way to recognize the importance of the event in a fun, but low-key way.
“We’re also going to have a little bit of a formal presentation, but not too much. We have some video we’re piecing together from the event and we also have some memorabilia that we’re putting together a bit of a display with,” Prodaniuk said.
She added it was the volunteers and their expertise, combined with the never-give-up attitude of the organizers, that ultimately landed Thunder Bay the Games, which featured both Nordic and ski jumping competitions at the now-closed Big Thunder complex.
“We also had at that time the biggest ski jump in the world, so it really was an international reputation. The culmination of all those years of training and volunteerism really was the world championships,” Prodaniuk said.
“It took us 10 years from the time we started to think about hosting to until the day we opened the event, to actually win it at an international level.”
The legacy still lives on today, the event leading to the possibility of world junior baseball championships, university hockey nationals, the Staal Foundation Open, the recently completed Special Olympics Canada Winter Games and the return next year of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
“It probably propelled the whole idea of sport tourism in our community and the number of volunteers and the expertise that all the volunteers,” Prodaniuk said.
“Today, I can go to any event, and I’ve been to many, where most of the volunteers are still from the original Nordics.”
Fellow organizer Jack Mallon said they had very little budget in those days, forcing them to get creative. One of the stories he plans to tell on Saturday night revolves around effort to lobby for the Games, which involved renting out B.C. Place to wine and dine delegates and how 800 cases of beer from Molson helped them eventually cover the costs.
“That’s how we got that one done and that was a great memory because I was nervous for three days wondering how we were going to pay the bill after we pulled that one off,” Mallon said.
“We’ve got so many stories and I can hardly wait to hear everyone explain their role in this thing, because everyone was involved.”
The two-hour celebration is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.
