Calgary Canada Celebrations

In 1984, 10 minutes before the start of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, a representative of L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates rushed into my control booth at the Coliseum to say, "We think there's a bomb in the torch. You can't light it." Fortunately, it turned out to be a false alarm, but enough of a jolt to panic me and my staff. Paddy Sampson, executive producer of Saturday's opening ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, had no such scare.

The XV Winter Olympics, which was supposed to be a 16-day shift in the ice house but became something less than a snow job, melted away into the darkness on a clear, cool Canadian Sunday night. Amid the din of exploding fireworks and the blinking light from thousands of flashbulbs, a Winter Olympics held in Canada for the first time and dominated by a team from the Soviet Union for the fifth consecutive time celebrated a successful run and then said goodby.

The XV Winter Olympics, which was supposed to be a 16-day shift in the ice house but became something less than a snow job, melted away into the darkness on a clear, cool Canadian Sunday night. Amid the din of exploding fireworks and the blinking light from thousands of flashbulbs, a Winter Olympics held in Canada for the first time and dominated by a team from the Soviet Union for the fifth consecutive time celebrated a successful run and then said goodby.

In 1984, 10 minutes before the start of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, a representative of L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates rushed into my control booth at the Coliseum to say, "We think there's a bomb in the torch. You can't light it." Fortunately, it turned out to be a false alarm, but enough of a jolt to panic me and my staff. Paddy Sampson, executive producer of Saturday's opening ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, had no such scare.