The Olympic Oval is a community facility offering public skating, running and events for all Calgarians and Canadians alike. The public gets to skate on The Fastest Ice in the World™, where 26 Olympic medalists have trained, earning 36 Olympic medals. The 400m ice surface is the largest in the province and can hold thousands of guests annually from July to March. It’s an incredible space for everyone — inclusive, diverse, safe, and welcoming.
A collaborative partnership with the Olympic Oval aims to foster an engaged community dedicated to health, well-being and fitness for all
The Olympic Oval is a community facility offering public skating, running and events for all Calgarians and Canadians alike. The public gets to skate on The Fastest Ice in the World™ where 26 Olympic medalists have trained, earning a total of 38 Olympic medals. The 400m ice surface is the largest in the province and can hold thousands of guests every year from July – March. It’s an incredible space for everyone — inclusive, diverse, safe, and welcoming. Our most successful engagements are when organizations engage the public directly. Placing yourself at the heart of the action is where you want to be. That action is during our recreational public skating season (our largest audience) during key public skating events and highlights throughout the year. Partners engage with our audiences with activations, games, booths, kiosks, and giveaways. Additionally, partners are welcome to engage with our audience and supplement our real estate spaces with ads, graphics and materials.
Every month, the Oval hosts at least one key public skating event.
Communities are in desperate need of facilities that are easily accessible. Most people don’t think of public skating as fitness, but they see the effects— cognitive improvement, joint and muscle health, weight loss, stress management and mental wellness.
As health and well-being become more important, the Oval is working tirelessly to be a place where anyone can come and enjoy the many health benefits of skating and running. Thousands come every year, and we hope to be a place where thousands more can discover skating and running in a welcoming, diverse, inclusive and safe environment.
Organizations partnering with the Oval can have positive associations—an effective tool for showcasing the value of an organization and its impact on a community. Furthermore, it increases brand equity, consumer perception, and value. Brand equity directly impacts sales volume and a company’s profitability as consumers gravitate toward products and services with great reputations.
This type of partnership benefits both sides, an association that could have a fantastic future for the health and well-being of Calgarians and Canadians alike.
The Olympic Oval was built for the 1988 Olympic Winter Games – originally intended as a speed skating facility only. It has grown to so much more, but at the core of what we do is developing athletes. High-performance sport plays a significant role in our culture; it brings people together, promotes sound values, provides role models for society, creates a sense of history, builds connections and helps create a culture of health, fitness and well-being. Sport is a unifier, and speed skating is a big part of that.
Our most successful athlete engagements are when organizations support high-performance athletes, the Olympic Oval Athlete Bursary and our speed skating competitions. All athlete engagement pieces provide real estate, branding, interaction, and naming options.
Sport deserves the same societal role as literature, performing arts, sculpture, cinema, and other expressions of human culture, skill, and creativity. Like many arts, sports have rules and expectations that their most creative and memorable practitioners find ways to bend or move in a new direction. Sport may be enjoyed directly––even if you are an amateur––and viewed as a spectator when one wants to watch an expert performance. Sport can especially provide collective joy, civic pride and even elements of transcendence that the finest art aspires to.
The Olympic Oval works tirelessly to provide a dynamic, innovative culture that promotes and celebrates participation and excellence. It is a values-based and principle-driven culture. It is not perfect. Sport is going through a necessary and transformative time right now — and for the better. However, there is a lot of work to do.
Training is expensive. Gear and materials are costly. For this reason, we partner with organizations that can support athletes in this capacity.
The Olympic Oval Athlete Bursary Fund alleviates some of the financial strains on Canadian high-performance athletes and their families. Equipment, training, competition, and travel all come at a price. These are just a handful of expenditures that bursaries have covered for past recipients, allowing them to focus on and remain in the exciting sport of speed skating. This is another way an organization can help make a difference.
As mentioned in this proposal’s community engagement component, partnering with the right organization creates brand equity but its much more than that. Partnerships with organizations like the Olympic Oval create a culture whereby other like-minded organizations/companies care and make a difference in the many communities they serve.
Every organization and engagement is different. For some, engagement is about interacting with their brand identity, advertising and awareness. The Olympic Oval has over 1,000,000 people coming and going every year >> the perfect audience to engage.
The Olympic Oval is rich with history and an incredible Olympic legacy.
Recreational Public Skating & Running
A 31% increase in recreational public skating and running admissions.
Customer Satisfaction
88% of guests rate the Oval as great or excellent.
Repeat Guests
72% of guests are repeat customers.
Demographics
86% of guests are Canadian.
The Oval is a fantastic venue to partner with. Hundreds of thousands of people go there, and it really has helped our business grow. We believe in their values and vice versa, so it's a natural fit.
Sara Bibi Colbourne
Best Western Village Park Inn
