Olympic Stadium
The stadium that cost so much, Montreal renamed it "The Big Owe."
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Built for the 1976 Summer Olympics and still carrying the scars — no main tenant since the Expos left for Washington in 2004, decades of structural and financial problems, and a reputation as a white elephant. The sheer ambition of the place, 56,040 seats with a doughnut-shaped roof, makes it worth the trip as a monument to what cities bet on the Olympics.
What to look for
- The Montreal Tower at the stadium's north base, inclined at 45 degrees and standing 165 metres — the world's tallest inclined tower, not finished until a full decade after the stadium opened
- The doughnut-shaped permanent roof component that gave the stadium its other nickname, The Big O
- The artificial turf laid after the Olympics, when the venue shifted from athletics to professional baseball and football
Located at Olympic Park in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district; the Montreal Botanical Garden is directly across Sherbrooke Street to the west.
Olympic Stadium is one of 14 sights worth the detour in Montreal, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Montreal pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Montreal
- Circuit Gilles VilleneuveThe track where Gilles Villeneuve beat the world on home soil in 1978 — and it now carries his name.
- Bell CentreCanada's largest indoor arena holds 20,962 people — and on a Canadiens night, the noise travels several city blocks.
- Habitat 67A McGill thesis project that actually got built — 354 prefabricated concrete boxes stacked into homes on the Saint Lawrence for a 1967 World's Fair.
- Notre-Dame BasilicaDeep blue vaults scattered with gold stars, and a 7,000-pipe organ that fills every corner of it.
- Montreal Museum of Fine ArtsCanada's oldest art museum, founded in 1860, now sprawls across five pavilions and draws more visitors than any other art museum in the country.
- Montreal City HallThe balcony where Charles de Gaulle delivered his "Vive le Québec libre" speech in 1967.