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I still remember waking up early on that Calgary morning of Sept. 30, 1981, waiting on the results of that Olympic announcement.
How long ago was it in real time?
The Flames were in their second season in Calgary. The Saddledome hadn't yet been discussed, let alone built. There was no Canada Olympic Park, no speed-skating oval, no clue of all that was to follow in the growth of a city and a sporting world.
And for most of the seven years that would follow, leading up to the Calgary Olympics, there was trepidation, angst, anticipation, hand-wringing and the occasional scandal, almost all of it to be forgotten in time: Because when the lights came on, when the world arrived, for 16 terrific days and nights, the Calgary Games were alive, well-run, financially viable, everything an Olympics is supposed to be -- everything and then some.
I was lucky: I got to live in Calgary from 1979-87, when so much of the talk was about getting the Olympics, making the Olympics and building the Olympics. And I was just as fortunate to be assigned to cover the Games of 1988, a Games that began the model that every host country hopes to follow.
They were a Games that worked and brought a city and a country to life.
They were a Games that left behind a sporting legacy of quality.
They were a Games that didn't assault the taxpayers and government with typical overspending.
They were a Games I remember more for what they felt like, what they looked like, how happy everyone seemed, how alive a formerly dead downtown became.
Twenty years and five Winter Olympics later, what do I remember from the Calgary Olympics?
Aside from the obvious -- everyone remembers Eddie The Eagle and the Jamaican bobsledders, who brought a quirky spirit to the Games -- I remember the people.
In a way, this wasn't the Calgary I had lived in for all those years. This was a city that stopped trying to be something it wasn't and instead celebrated what it was. The stars of the Calgary Olympics may have been ski-jumper Matti Nykanen and speed skater Yvonne van Gennip, each winning three gold medals. But truly, does anybody really remember them?
Does anyone remember that Tamara Tikhonova dominated in cross-country skiing or that Vladimir Smirnov won three medals? Most of us were too busy drinking Smirnov to notice.
The funny thing about any Olympic Games is the paradox of it all: How it is supposed to bring countries together, but in the end what it really does is distinguish the differences between them.
So we remember Liz Manley battling Katarina Witt and Brian Orser battling Brian Boitano and both probably deserving a better fate.
We remember a hockey team that wasn't very good and a ski team that didn't perform and the ignomy of being an Olympic country that didn't win a gold medal in its own backyard.
But look what Calgary gave to not only its own country, its own winter sports nation, but to the world.
The demonstration sports at the Calgary Games were curling, freestyle skiing, and short-track speed skating. In the five Games that would follow, these have become three of Canada's most successful sporting ventures.
And look at how the world has taken to Calgary as the speed-skating training centre for many of the great competitors around the globe. Would there have been a Catriona LeMay Doan had it not been for the Calgary Games? Would we have known that face, that smile, those thighs, without there first being a Calgary Games.
OPTIMISM
We didn't win much of anything in Calgary but, as the Vancouver Games of 2010 approach, there is optimism -- albeit somewhat unrealistic -- that Canada can win the most medals of any country.
This after not even appearing on the leaderboard at the Calgary Games 22 years earlier.
That's how far Canadians have come in winter sports. Little of that would have been possible without Calgary, without the money and the facilities and the optimism left behind from the first truly great Olympic Games.
Calgary set the table for the rest of the world. Lillehammer followed with a brilliant Winter Games in the most frigid of temperatures. Sydney managed the same kind of feeling in the summer.
It is still possible to manage the impossible.
I have covered seven different Winter Olympics, and behind Lillehammer, Calgary would rank as the second best experience. That's great company to be keeping.
And 20 years later, the sporting children of the Calgary Games are having success all over the world. What better legacy could there be than that?