Women's World Cup to Vancouver in 2015

Soccer, on the front lawn of Parliament Hill in Ottawa? You bet. A girls youth friendly match is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time May 4. before Canadian Soccer Association president Dominic Maestracci and FIFA president Sepp Blatter unveil the list of cities to host matches for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. One of the cities will be Vancouver. But you'll have to wait a bit longer to find out whether it hosts a semi-final, bronze medal match and/or the championship final. "The schedule will be released in the second half of 2012," said CSA communications manager Michele Dion. B.C. Place Stadium's only serious competition for the final is Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium. Olympic Stadium in Montreal is a darkhorse. Toronto will be hosting the 2015 Pan American Games, so BMO Field and Rogers Centre will be off limits. The British Columbia government committed $2 million of taxpayers funds to the CSA to bring matches to Vancouver. We do not know the full cost to taxpayers for the tournament. The federal government has promised at least $15 million. B.C. Soccer Association executive director Bjorn Osieck will be there, as part of a delegation of seven from the west coast for the weekend's annual general meeting. Maestracci faces a leadership challenge, as Canada's four professional clubs are backing candidate Rob Newman in the May 5 election. The SBC Insurance CEO, formerly from Saskatchewan, has been a CSA vice-president since 2006 and chairs the governance committee. The CSA will be patting itself on the back all weekend over so-called governance reforms. It's still an organization that has not met the challenge of transparency. If it really wants the public to believe in reform, the best, first step would be to release a financial report. Until then, it'll be up to us in the media to pay $5 to the government under the Access to Information Act to get a copy. Dion said Blatter will stay for the Saturday AGM and banquet. Will it be his last visit to Canada? Blatter is serving his third and final term as FIFA president after his 2011 re-election. The world's soccer governing body is under fire for allegations of widespread corruption.

Is B.C. Place inching closer to a strike?

Is B.C. Place Stadium one step closer to a strike?

Local 1703 of the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union, which represents ushers, security guards and maintenance workers, was scheduled to restart talks with B.C. Pavilion Corporation on Oct. 14. But the two sides did not begin meetings until 1 p.m.!

"That seems odd," said a source who did not want to be identified. "I hear it's going nowhere fast."

The union voted 89 percent in favour of a strike last month. If talks break down, then the union can declare 72-hour strike notice. The next event in the stadium is the Vancouver Whitecaps' last home game of their first Major League Soccer regular season on Oct. 22.

Workers are not getting any pay raise, as per the government's wage freeze, but they want job security and anti-bullying language in their contract.

The last contract expired May 31.

Premier Christy Clark seemed oddly optimistic in a media scrum after the Oct. 13 Grey Cup festival news conference at the Vancouver Convention Centre. But she has been known for her naivete and lack of tight grasp on policy.

Stay tuned for developments.

Kimchee and soju beats pretzels and weissbier

Only one ballot was needed on July 6 for PyeongChang, South Korea to avoid being a three-time loser in Olympic bidding.

The Winter Olympics are going to the east coast of the Korean peninsula after a landslide win with 63 votes. Munich, Germany -- vying to be the first city to host winter and summer -- received 25 votes. Annecy, France only seven. The third-time lucky South Korean bidders are so elated that they haven't found time to change the logo on their website from "candidate city" to "host city".

PyeongChang famously lost to Sochi, Russia in 2007 for the 2014 Games and was defeated by just three votes four years earlier in the race for 2010 with Vancouver.

The three 2018 bid cities were the only ones who applied, a ripple effect of the Great Recession. It was the smallest race since 1981 when Calgary beat two competitors to host the 1988 Winter Games and Seoul beat Nagoya, Japan for the 1988 Summer Games. (By comparison, eight cities applied for the 2010 Games, four were shortlisted.)

PyeongChang was last to deliver the hour-long presentation to the International Olympic Committee members gathered in Durban, South Africa for the 123rd session. The presentation relied on Vancouver 2010 women's figure skating champion Kim Yu-na and Toby Dawson, the Korean-born, American downhill skier with Turin 2006 bronze.

The New Horizons slogan for PyeongChang reminded the IOC of recent trends in mega-event hosting. It's a new market for winter sports. The only two previous Asian Winter Olympics were both in Japan (Sapporo 1972 and Nagano 1998).

The fact that 19 of 21 Winter Olympics were held outside Asia was included in the presentation, much the way that IOC members were reminded that no Summer Olympics had been held in South America before they chose Rio de Janeiro's 2016 bid two years ago.

The man behind the scenes for both Rio and PyeongChang was Vero Campaigning Communications executive Mike Lee. Lee was also the key strategist behind London 2012 and the controversial 2022 World Cup in Qatar and he advised the International Rugby Board on its successful campaign to add rugby sevens to the 2016 Olympics.

During Vancouver 2010, Lee was busily connecting the PyeongChang bidders with IOC members at Korea House in a Hyatt Regency Hotel ballroom. Since the Salt Lake 2002 bribery scandal, IOC members have been banned from visiting host cities.

Ultimately, the influence of Korean conglomerate Samsung was key. The company renewed its global sponsorship in the mobile phone category before the 2007 vote through the 2016 Games and hosted the 2009 Olympic day celebration in Vancouver when cash-strapped VANOC could not afford to.

Vancouver was also where disgraced South Korean IOC member Lee Kun-hee was reinstated by the IOC just before the 2010 Games. Lee gave up his membership after a 2008 tax evasion conviction, but the Seoul government agreed to pardon him in December 2009. Less than a month after the Vancouver Games closed, Lee returned to the chairmanship of Samsung.

There may have also been some quiet diplomacy in back-channels by Ban Ki-moon, the former Korean foreign minister who is the United Nations secretary general. The UN granted the IOC observer status the same day in October 2009 that VANOC CEO John Furlong appeared for the approval of the Vancouver Olympic Truce resolution.

Canada has been involved in on-again, off-again talks with South Korea about a free trade agreement since 2004.

The Games will open Feb. 9, 2018 and close outdoors on Feb. 25, 2018 at the 15,000-capacity Alpensia Ski Jumping Stadium, one of several venues already built. The biggest construction project will be a 110-mile high-speed train line to connect PyeongChang with Incheon International Airport in Seoul in just over an hour. PyeongChang's Yangyang Airport is incapable of handling the Games international air traffic and will instead receive charter flights.

The biggest wildcard on the road to 2018? Look no further than North Korea. Will Kim Jong-il, the dictator of the "Hermit Kingdom," interfere in any way? Every year the "Dear Leader" seems to create headlines with an international incident on the volatile peninsula, where the war between North and South ceased in 1953 but never truly ended. China props up North Korea, while the United States maintains a heavy military presence in South Korea.

Of course, those in the Olympic movement would love nothing more than to witness the two Koreas be unified by sport and march into the opening ceremony under one flag and compete together.

Easier said than done. But it is a peninsula known for perseverance.

PavCo says cost overruns not its problem

What's up with B.C. Place Stadium's roof, you say?

Well, for one thing, the price.

TSX-listed Canam Group (CAM) revealed on April 21 that it would take an "after-tax reserve of $25 million" for 2011's first fiscal quarter for "additional costs for the completion of the cables" on B.C. Place Stadium's retractable roof.

"The corporation believes this reserve represents the likely loss until completion of the project, while adding that discussions to reduce the impact of the reserve are ongoing with various project participants," said a news release.

Further information is to come April 27 when Canam Group president Marc Dutil will conduct a teleconference with financial analysts and media. Spokesman Jasmin Gosselin said Dutil was not available for earlier comment on the B.C. Place overrun.

Canam's Structal Heavy Steel Construction unit announced Oct. 28, 2009 that it scored a contract worth more than $100 million from PCL Constructors Westcoast. Steel was to be sourced from St. Gedeon de Beauce, Quebec and Sunnyside, Wash. by the company that supplied steel to 53 North American stadiums and arenas, such as Air Canada Centre, the new Giants Stadium and Red Bull Arena.

"Both the deliveries and the erection work will begin in the early part of 2010 and continue until the end of the year," said the 2009 news release.

Based on that news release, the schedule has already gone overtime. The last of the 36 steel masts was not in place until Jan. 13 of this year. The original deadline was the end of December 2010. Installation of the roof fabric was supposed to begin in February, but that won't happen until May. B.C. Pavilion Corporation CEO Warren Buckley told me earlier in April that testing of the finished retractable roof would happen at the end of August or start of September with a public open house on Sept. 25. Reopening night is Sept. 30 when the B.C. Lions host the Edmonton Eskimos.

B.C. Pavilion Corporation chairman David Podmore and Buckley did not respond to email queries about Canam's $25 million overrun. Buckley was not available when I called his office Tuesday morning, but spokesman Norman Stowe said via email: "Canam’s issue has no impact on PavCo which has a fixed price contract. No one is looking to PavCo for any shortfall."

PCL inked a $318 million fixed-price contract for the roof work in November 2009. The announced cost of the taxpayer-funded renovation is $563 million (it was supposed to be $365 million).

An announcement is expected soon that the stadium will be renamed for a brand of telecommunications giant Telus. Sources say the company won the bidding for naming rights.

APRIL 27 UPDATE

Canam reported a $39.7 million first quarter loss on April 27 and blamed it on "fierce competition in some business segments as well as the provisions for B.C. Place."

Dutil said Canam's Structal division got the B.C. Place contract in spring 2009 but the final contract wasn't executed until the fall of 2009. He said Structal's scope of work included the columns, compression beams, catwalks, arches and facade elements.

On a teleconference after his company's April 27 annual general meeting, Dutil said Structal "encountered severe delays in the cable portion of the work" in the first quarter after relying on the expertise of France-based Freyssinet.

"We are not cable experts and therefore relied on a third-party to estimate, price, plan and execute the installation of the cable work required to support the fabric roof, the centre node and all the elements required for the retractable roof system," Dutil said.

"During this first quarter we encountered severe delays in the cable portion of the work and hence we estimated that a $25 million after-tax reserve was warranted at this time. We hope to be able to recover a portion of this amount. Our first priority remains to deliver a safe, quality and timely project to our customer PCL and the end-user, B.C. Pavilion Corporation... The circumstances of the B.C. Place job are very difficult, but they confirm that even in the face of such challenges we do not run away."

"We had indications that the erection portion of these cables would be a lot faster and cost a lot less than it's turned out to be. It is my understanding that the taxpayers of B.C. are not on the hook for this, this was a contract where we have to perform at a fixed-price and we'll negotiate between ourselves and third parties. No one intends to refill the bill to someone else.

Dutil said Structal is in talks with Freyssinet to resolve the matter, but his company's work will be done in late July or early August.

"It's going to be a marvel. It's going to be well-done, safe and you're going to enjoy it for many years in Vancouver. It will just cost a little more than expected -- to us."

Asked for comment on the Canam overrun, PavCo CEO Warren Buckley told me: "This is a Canam matter and has nothing to do with the delivery of the completed stadium within the scope of the fixed price contract. There is not impact on budget and we are very confident that we are on track for a Sept. 30 completion."

Inside Commerzbank Arena and B.C. Place Stadium

What's it like inside B.C. Place Stadium while it undergoes a $563 million renovation to become more like Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, Germany?

Join me for a quick tour of the 2005-renovated home of the Bundesliga's Eintracht Frankfurt here and the past and future home of the B.C. Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps here.