Deadly incident at Canada Olympic Park wasn't the first time the bobsled run was used for a sneaky thrill ride
By
Michael Platt, Calgary Sun
First posted: Sunday, February 07, 2016 07:35 PM EST | Updated: Monday, February 08, 2016 11:02 AM EST
Of course it sounds like a crazy, dangerous idea — except these kids weren’t the first to eye up Calgary’s sleek and slippery bobsled track for a sneaky thrill ride.
Officially, Canada Olympic Park’s tracks are off-limits to all but athletes and people authorized to use the twisty course, with signs warning all others to keep off — but the reality is an ice track that’s been used for years by staff at the hill for all sorts of illicit slides.
“When you’re working there, shovel in hand, and you need to get from one spot to the other in a hurry, for a goof you slide on down,” said Tom, a former staff member at the hill, who asked that his real name be kept private.
“Of course, if you got caught, you’d be in big trouble, but there are lots of stories of guys doing this and that. It happened all the time, just guys at work farting around.”
And so you have two young men, popular twin brothers with a reputation as clever, charismatic young men, who happened to get jobs last winter working the lifts at Canada Olympic Park, within metres of the tantalizing track that would claim their lives just one year later.
Did they hear stories about staff members like Tom sliding down the track on his work shovel? Was the anecdote about the Australians who once tried to ride a park bench down the hill a common tale in the staff room?
Such stories are suddenly common on social media, as people connected to the hill discuss the disaster on the bobsled run, and share trips down the track on everything from seat cushions to benches.
Tom says he’s never heard of people sneaking in to slide, but he says it was common among track staff, who had steel crampons on their boots to control the speed of descent or stop when needed.
It is that clear Jordan and Evan Caldwell never anticipated anything but adrenaline and fun when they and six friends crept onto the bobsled track with a toboggan, unaware that a half-kilometre down the hill was disaster, in the form of a barricade used to separate the luge and bobsled tracks.
In the darkness of Saturday morning, when the teens arrived with their toboggans, the track was set up for luge. That meant the barricade, acting like the track selector on a model railway set, was blocking the bobsled run.
“If they’d ever worked on the track they would have known to check first for the barricade. It’s common for it to be there,” said Tom.
That’s not blame, that’s reality.
And the reality here is a bunch of kids doing something silly and potentially dangerous, but that’s what teenage boys have always done, typically to walk away bruised, battered and a whole lot wiser.
This was the tragic exception.
Some might try and blame WinSport Canada, which owns and operates Canada Olympic Park, for not having built a fortress of fencing, barbed wire and CCTV cameras around the track, or having more than a couple of security guards watching over the park after hours.
But that would be ludicrous.
For Calgary to guard against every mishap that might befall a pack of teenage boys, there would have to be fences around every river, walls blocking every steep hill, and cameras watching every park, building and street in the city.
WinSport is a victim here too, and sympathy should go out to staff forced to deal with the aftermath of this sad mistake, which claimed two young lives, badly injured six more, and impacted countless others through grief.
“The loss of Jordan and Evan Caldwell is being felt by many in the Calgary community, including our team here at WinSport, where the two young men worked as Hill Ambassadors during last winter’s season,” Barry Heck, WinSport’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Reached for comment Sunday, WinSport chose not to address allegations the track had previously been a target for thrill seekers.
The decision to toboggan down a bobsled track wasn’t a good one, not at all.
But to suggest this was a predictable disaster, requiring new legislation and extensive security changes, is to cloud a tragic teenage mistake in pointless blame.
Instead, Calgary should focus on the exceptional young men we lost, and offer understanding to those who remain in hospital, scarred for life — and that’s not counting physical injuries.
Flowers have been placed on a fence near the start of the WinSport bobsled track in tribute to twin teen boys who died on the track early Saturday morning. (Gavin Young/Postmedia)
Deadly incident at Canada Olympic Park wasn't the first time the bobsled run was
Man recalls previous Calgary bobsled track crash
By
Damien Wood, Calgary Sun
First posted: Monday, February 08, 2016 06:37 PM EST | Updated: Monday, February 08, 2016 10:42 PM EST
Brian Grant doesn’t actually remember crashing through the barricade on the Canada Olympic Park bobsled run back in 1994.
Due to the head injury he received, he doesn’t recall anything beyond the final curve before the collision.
He had to get the details later and that’s when he realized how lucky he was.
With his brakeman and two passengers on a track tour with him, the long-time bobsledder smashed through the barricade, continuing down the run with debris trailing behind him.
He didn’t realize at the time the barricade was in place and said in his situation it wasn’t supposed to be.
It was the bobsled’s push bar which spared him.
“That’s what kept the metal pipes from hitting me in the chest,” Grant said.
Then he heard of eight teenagers experiencing a similar crash on the track over the weekend, killing 17-year-old twins Jordan and Evan Caldwell and injuring six others.
“I’m guessing a bobsled would have been going about somewhere between 60 and 80 km/h where the barricade is,” Grant said.
“A toboggan would go slower.
“(But) in that case of a toboggan, once you start off you can’t stop, they wouldn’t have been able to change their minds.”
It’s also a tougher barricade today than it was in 1994, Grant said.
“Following my accident they built a new barricade,” he said.
Grant said the barricade he went through was multiple sections, and an aluminium frame with plastic puck boards over top.
Grant said the temptation to do what those eight teenagers did over the weekend is one he understands, but he also noted there are means to try out that track, without such severe risk.
“All of these sports are accessible for the general public in Calgary — it’s not just for Olympic athletes — there are entry levels for the average person to try these sports,” he said.
A tarp covers the intersection of the bobsled and luge tracks at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Alta., on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016. An after-hours visit to a Calgary luge-bobsled track early Saturday resulted in the deaths of two young men and injuries to six others. Calgary police say emergency crews were called to the WinSport facility in northwest Calgary at 1:30 a.m. after a report of several injured people on a closed track. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Larry MacDougal
Man recalls previous Calgary bobsled track crash | Canada | News | Toronto Sun
