Host City
The 37th All-Star Game marked the first time the event was held in Calgary. The game was held in the two-year old Olympic Saddledome, which had been built following the Flames arrival in Calgary, and in anticipation of the 1988 Winter Olympics. A sell-out crowd of 16,825 attended the game, and the gala also sold out. In total, $100,000 was raised by the Flames which was donated to charity. The traditional black-tie nature of the banquet and gala were eschewed for this game as the hosts asked attendees to dress up in western wear.
Campbell Conference and Edmonton Oilers head coach Glen Sather expressed displeasure that the fans in Calgary did not let go of the Battle of Alberta for the game. He took issue with the fans booing Edmonton's Wayne Gretzky during the player introductions and the game itself. "It's embarrassing when they boo Wayne when he touches the puck. They booed him once before when he was hurt so..." For his part, Gretzky downplayed Sather's concerns: "I've certainly got nothing against them booing me. I kind of get a kick out of it."
Read more about this topic: 37th National Hockey League All-Star Game
Famous quotes containing the words host and/or city:
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)
“The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.... It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.... It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)