Ivanie Blondin moved to Calgary from Ottawa in 2010 to switch from short-track to long-track speed skating. It turned out to be a smart move, both for her career and for her lifestyle.

For Kyle Shewfelt, 2004 was a year of important firsts, both personally and on the world stage.

At the Summer Olympics in Athens, he captured Canada's first and only Olympic medal in artistic gymnastics, picking up gold in the floor exercise. A few months later, the Calgary-born gymnast, who has also earned medals at the world championships and Commonwealth Games, bought his first home.

The games are gone, but its legacy lives on

While the Olympic flame may be long extinguished, warm memories and many benefits of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary are alive and well 30 years later.

"The best thing about the Olympic experience was the forethought that went into its legacy," said Dale Oviatt, senior manager of communications and stakeholder engagement for WinSport.

On Sept. 30, 1981, WinSport, formerly known as the Calgary Olympic Development Association (CODA), successfully won the bid from the International Olympic Committee for Calgary to host the XV Olympic Winter Games in 1988.

As Calgary considers a bid for the 2026 Olympics, it will likely find no stronger booster than the city's real estate industry

The prospect of hosting another Olympics is undoubtedly creating a lot of a buzz in Calgary and the city has no bigger booster of the cause than its real estate industry.

The City officially announced last month that an exploratory committee (www.shouldcalgarybid.com) is investigating whether Calgary should bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

While there's no guarantee the City will actually go through with it, hosting the Winter Games for a second time could be a boon for Calgary's real estate market.

Chris Bolt recalls big changes during time as CREB® president in 1999

The year was 1999. Y2K fears gripped society, the price of oil started to rebound and construction on a controversial new building for CREB® finally got underway.

In other words, it was just another day for Chris Bolt, who, today, looks back at his presidency for the REALTOR® organization as one of his greatest career accomplishments.

But how the native of London ended up leading the province's largest real estate organization during a year of transition is even more interesting.

Former CREB® president Greg Houston remembers 1989 as the year it all started to turn around

The boom came back.

After a lengthy slump in the early 1980s, Calgary's real estate market began a resurgence in 1989 – and not a moment too soon, recalls Greg Houston, who was president of CREB® that year.

"1989 was a great year," he said. "Things were looking up. There was stability in the business, after years of foreclosures and people declaring bankruptcies. As far as I was concerned, things were finally turning around."

Canada Olympic Park communities still hold memories of 1988 Winter Olympics

While the 1988 Winter Olympics are almost three decades in the books, the memories for some Calgarians are as fresh as ever.

Calgarian Duncan Anderson was 15 in 1988. As a "budding ski racer," he took a job as a film runner for Canadian Press during the games.

"Basically my job was to position myself with the photographers until the top racers had finished their runs," he said.

WinSport Ice House allows for winter sport training all year long

With the thud of running feet and the unmistakable sound of blades on ice, the test sled rushes down the hill on a rainy summer day.

Even in Calgary, August and snow don't go hand in hand. Yet that isn't the case at the Ice House located in the Markin MacPhail Centre at WinSport Canada Olympic Park, one of more than three dozen sites to be featured in the third-annual Doors Open YYC program Sept. 27 – 28.