The Games people play. The stadium the Games built.
Soccer fans experienced Hamilton’s brand new stadium during the 2015 Pan Am Games
Hundreds of thousands of soccer fans descended on Hamilton in July 2015 for Pan Am soccer. All 32 tournament matches were played here.
Hosting the games meant Hamilton received a new $145-million, 25,000-seat facility — Tim Hortons Field — to replace eroding Ivor Wynne Stadium.
The Pan Am Games were touted to be the largest sporting event ever held in Canada. The Ontario government backed a $1.77-billion local bid to host the games. City staff praised Hamilton-Niagara economic development officials for turning the Pan Am Games into a bonanza of new investment for the area.
Despite this, a lot of talk at the time of the games was about traffic problems between Hamilton and Toronto for regular commuters amid changes to HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lane rules.
Pan Am 2015 by the numbers:
3,141 people from Hamilton/Burlington/Oakville applied to TO2015 to be Pan Am Games volunteers, the most of any region and 220 per cent of the target number.
131,000 people attended events at “Hamilton Kicks It Up” cultural celebrations.
More than 50,000 residents participated in “All Things Pan Am, “the program that funded small neighbourhood events surrounding the Games.
The city’s transportation planning team said the city “operated well through Games-time” with no serious traffic congestion.
10,000 people attended the twoday closing event hosted by Supercrawl Productions at Pier 4 Park.
250 Hamilton Police Services members worked full-time on the Games.
HSR scheduled 1,120 hours of increased service over the 16 days of the games.
Tourism Hamilton’s “familiarization tours” during the games resulted in seven new provincial and national events for the city, carrying an economic impact of $1.8 million.
Hotel occupancy was up 9.5 per cent overall over the same period the previous year, with all hotel rooms in the city sold out for the final weekend.
A stronger connection between the city and First Nations people in the area was forged through participation in games activities.