All it took was the Expos to leave?

From ballparkdigest.com:

Olympic Stadium finally paid off

MONTREAL (CP) - The Olympic-sized bill for the Big O is finally history some 30 years after the stadium was built as the main venue for the 1976 Summer Games.

The final price tag for Montreal's Olympic Stadium and the structures in the adjoining Olympic park was $1.47 billion, Gilles Lepine, who runs the facility, said Tuesday. The last payment was delivered in November.

''Maybe it was too much, but that was in the past and you have to look forward,'' said Lepine, president of the Olympic Intsallations Board, the provincial government agency that manages the stadium known as The Big O.

''We have a facility here and we have to make it as useful and profitable as possible.''

Look forward? Useful? Profitable? How?

Now, the stadium needs a new roof, although a price tag has not yet been set for that. An engineering firm is to submit plans in the coming months, Lepine said.

The stadium is closed four months per year in winter because fire marshals fear it may not withstand the weight of snow.

Well, that doesn't help or sound very profitable.

It's main tenant after the Olympics, baseball's Montreal Expos, moved to Washington, D.C. after the 2004 season, while the CFL's Montreal Alouettes moved out in 1999 for the outdoor Percival Molson Stadium downtown.

However, the Alouettes still play twice a year at Olympic Stadium to take advantage of its 50,000-plus seating capacity - the largest by far of any stadium in Quebec. The Als also still use office space and training facilities at the Big O.

Lately, it has been used mostly for trade shows, concerts and special events like dog shows and moto-cross competitions. Lepine said it was in use 200 days in the past year.

This is how it ends. Not with a bang, but with a dog show outdrawing an eight-game Expo homestand.