Montreal 1976: Venues overview
A total of 24 sporting venues were used at the Olympic Games Montreal 1976: seven of them were new, 15 existing and two temporary.
All seven of the new venues remain in use today, with one of them, the Olympic Velodrome, having been repurposed. Fourteen of the existing venues are still in use. The Forum, which hosted the gymnastics events, was converted into an entertainment centre in 2001, while the Paul Sauvé Centre, the volleyball venue, was dismantled in 1992. The two temporary venues (used for shooting, boxing and wrestling) were dismantled as planned after the Games.
Three of the new venues (the Olympic Stadium, Olympic Velodrome and Olympic Pool) can be found at the Olympic Park, where the Olympic Village is also located. The main hub of the Games and a major cultural, sporting and commercial venue for the people of Montreal, the Olympic Park has welcomed over 100 million visitors since 1976.
The Olympic Pool, which attracts approximately 250,000 recreational users a year, continues to host Canada’s national championships and Olympic trials and staged the 2018 FINA Diving World Series. It is also the training base for four of Canada’s national aquatic sports teams.
The venue for the first indoor track cycling competitions in Olympic history, the Olympic Velodrome was converted in 1992 into the Biodome, one of Canada’s largest natural science museum complexes.
The Olympic Stadium remains in use all year round and is one of three Canadian stadiums that will be used at the FIFA World Cup United 2026. The venue for the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, the stadium hosts a number of cultural, commercial, and national and international sporting events. It was visited by 66 million people between 1976 and 2011, and was in use for 239 days in 2017. Deficits resulting from its construction were cleared in 2006.
The other venues built for Montreal 1976 and still in use are the Centre Étienne Desmarteau (which staged the basketball competition), the Claude Robillard Centre (handball and water polo), the Olympic Basin (canoeing and rowing) and the Sherbrooke Stadium (football).
The Organising Committee made extensive use of existing venues, renovating or repurposing some of them to stage events. For example, the Pierre Charbonneau Centre was refurbished to accommodate the wrestling competition, while the St Michel Arena – an ice hockey venue – was upgraded to host the weightlifting competition.
In terms of the current use of existing venues, the Maurice Richard Arena is, for example, a training facility for the Canadian short track speed skating team, while the Molson Stadium is used by McGill University sports teams and is also the home ground of the Montreal Allouettes Canadian football team.