Le Stade Olympique (The Olympic Stadium) is a stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Originally built to be the main venue of the 1976 Summer
Olympics, it was subsequently used mainly by Montreal's professional baseball and Canadian football teams. The stadium, now functioning as a
56,040-seat multipurpose facility, has been and continues to be used to host a wide variety of events such as trade shows, unique sporting
events, giant parties, and religious services.

It has the largest seating capacity of any stadium in Canada.
Ground Breaking of Olympic Stadium
The stadium was designed by French architect Roger Taillibert to be a
very elaborate facility featuring a retractable roof, which was to be opened
and closed by a huge 175-metre (583 ft 4 in) tower — the tallest inclined
structure in the world, six metres (20 ft) taller than the Washington
Monument, and the sixth tallest building in Montreal.

The Olympic swimming pool is located under this tower. An Olympic
velodrome (since converted to the Montreal Biodome, an indoor nature
museum) was situated at the base of the tower in a building similar in
design to the swimming pool. The building was built as the main stadium
for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. The stadium was host to various
events including: the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics, football
finals, and some equestrian events.

Construction
As construction was well underway, a labour strike caused a major delay
to the building of the tower. The roof languished in a warehouse in France
until 1982.

(not-so) Grand Opening
Problems plagued the stadium from the time it opened for the Olympic
Games, when it was only half built.

Seating 58,500 at the time, the stadium was not fully completed in time for
the games due to strikes by construction workers, leaving it without a
tower or roof for the opening and several years following. Both the tower
and the roof, made of over 60,000 square feet (5,575 square metres) of
kevlar, were not completed for over a decade, and it was not until 1988
that it was possible to retract the roof. The 65-ton roof then proved
difficult to retract, and could not operate at all in winds greater than 25
mph. It was also torn during high winds.
Stadium Financing
Despite initial projections in 1970 that the stadium would cost only C$134 million to construct, strikes and construction delays served to escalate
these costs. By the time the stadium opened (in an unfinished form) the total costs had risen to C$264 million.

The Quebec government introduced a special tobacco tax in May 1976 to help recoup its investment. By 2006 the amount contributed to the
Olympic Installations Board accounted for 8% of the tax revenue earned from cigarette sales. The 1976 special tobacco tax act stipulated that
once the stadium was paid off, ownership of the facility would be returned back to the City of Montreal.

In December 2006 the stadium's costs were finally paid in full. The total expenditure (including repairs, renovations, construction, interest, and
inflation) amounted to C$1.61 billion. Despite initial plans to complete payment in October 2006, an indoor smoking ban introduced in May 2006
curtailed the revenue gathered by the tobacco tax.

Perceived by many to be a white elephant, the stadium has also been dubbed The Big Owe, Uh-O or The Big Mistake. In a speech announcing
that Montreal would host the Olympic Games, then-mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, is remembered for saying, "The Olympics can no more
have a deficit than a man can have a baby." This now-famous quote is often parodied by residents

On-Going Issues
Due to claims of being a poor venue for baseball, the Olympic Stadium was remodeled in 1991, with 12,000 seats being removed for Expos
games.

On September 8 of that year, support beams snapped and caused a 55 ton concrete slab to fall on to an interior walkway. No one was injured,
but the Expos had to move their final 13 home games of that season to the other cities. For the 1992 season, it was decided to keep the roof on
at all times. The roof was removed in May 1998, making the stadium open-air for the 1998 season. Later in 1998, a $26 million opaque blue roof
was installed which does not open.

In January 1999, a 350 square metre portion of the roof collapsed, dumping ice and snow on workers that were setting up for the annual
Montreal Auto Show. This led to the auto show leaving Olympic Stadium for good. Repaired once again, the roof has continued to prove less
than reliable, as structural breaches have occurred during the winter months (due to snow and ice accumulation). The contractors,
manufacturers and engineers of the roof are now being sued for the roof failure.

The stadium is now closed for four months every winter as the fire marshal has concerns about the roof being unable to support snow loads. A
third replacement roof is being considered as of March 2006.
       Historic Games at Olympic Stadium