Prince   George, B.C.-The Technical Review Team with the  Canada Winter Games committee has only to  visit to Kelowna  to wrap  up the initial  visits to the three communities vying for the 2015 Canada Winter Games.

 

Yesterday, the team toured Kamloops, after  being in Prince George Monday to  visit 21 locations.  The 7 member   review  team  looked  at  sites from the Tabor and Purden ski hills, to the  cross country and biathlon facilities at Otway and more than a dozen venues in between. Acting Director for Prince George Leisure Services, Colleen Van Mook  says the tour went well “It started at 8:30 in the morning and ended at 4:30, I’m very proud of what we showed them.”

 

Van Mook says the review team asked plenty of questions, mostly about things like capacity for spectators, equipment storage,  and accessibility .

 

While details of how Prince George plans to handle housing the 1800 athletes who would be taking part in each of the two weeks of competition, she says the focus would be in the downtown area with the Civic Centre the “Mission” centre for food services and games offices. She says there have already been discussions with local hoteliers on handling the necessary accommodation requests. “We don’t want to give out any specifics just yet as we are still in competition with two other communities.”

 

Cities will be advised in early December if they are approved to move on to the next stage. That stage will require the development of a more comprehensive plan which must be submitted by May 28^th of next year.   

Van Mook has a very good feeling about how the Prince George assessment went “ I am quite confident  we will be moving forward.”

 

The Canada Winter Games could pump as much as $90 million into the local economy, but will require a significant financial commitment on the part of the City (estimated $9 million) for operating costs and capital development.