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Like many speedskaters over the past 38 years, Carolina Hiller-Donnelly, BSc’23, considers the to be her home away from home.

After moving from Prince George, B.C., in 2015 to study and skate at the University of Calgary, she spent nearly as much time in the Oval as she did in classrooms or at home.

It was all in the name of perfecting Hiller-Donnelly’s craft and putting herself in the best position to achieve greatness and make it to the Olympics in long-track speedskating.

The hours of hard work and dedication through training, practices and competitions have finally paid off as Hiller-Donnelly will make her debut with the at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina.

“Representing Canada at the Olympic Games means absolutely everything to me,” she says. “I’m so proud to be a part of the team.”

Hiller-Donnelly is the latest in a long list of Oval athletes to head to the Olympics, where 26 skaters have produced 36 medals in “Canada’s Medal Factory.”

Aspiring to be the best

Making it to the Olympics has been the dream of Hiller-Donnelly for as long as she can remember — and for good reason.

Her mother, Ariadne, first saw the sport on TV in her home country of Panama during the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.

Even though there were no speedskating clubs in Panama, she was captivated by the sport and vowed to have her future children try it.

When Ariadne and her husband moved to Prince George, they made good on that desire when Hiller-Donnelly was four years old.

With a passion for the sport and obvious talent at a young age, Hiller-Donnelly’s story came full circle as a teenager when she competed at a national competition at the Olympic Oval.

“It was incredible walking down the stairs and just being in awe of how big it looks,” she says. 

“Being able to watch the national teams train here when I was maybe 10 years old, coming for camps in the summer, it was all so amazing.”

After performing well at the famed facility, Hiller-Donnelly made it her goal to attend UCalgary and continue training on “the fastest ice in the world.”

A facility for the community

Built with about 22,500 cubic metres of concrete, including 3,600 for the rink surfaces alone, the Oval has been a crown jewel of the ’88 Olympics legacy.

Originally planned to be an outdoor oval, former Faculty of Kinesiology Dean Roger Jackson pushed the idea of having the bid committee include a $40-million indoor facility, just the third in the world, to be built at UCalgary.

To make sure the project didn’t go unused after the Games, the initial agreement included use being divided evenly between the public, university and the Canadian Olympic Association.

“Welcome to your Oval,” UCalgary President Norman Wagner told the nearly 4,000 people in attendance for the opening ceremony on Sept. 27, 1987. “Please come back often.”

The people did with attendance blooming to more than 550,000 visitors every year, including 40,000 public skaters and nearly 800 varsity athletes training at the Oval.

An Olympics to remember

There for nearly every step of the journey has been Mark Messer.

A former heavy-duty mechanic and construction worker, he started working on a variety of projects at the Olympic Saddledome (now the Scotiabank Saddledome) in 1983 before joining the newly opened Olympic Oval in 1987 to work as a Zamboni driver and crew member.

Heading into the ’88 Games, the current Oval director says they were feeling a lot of pressure to perform.

“Some people thought it was going to be a failure because they had these hockey guys handling speedskating ice,” Messer says. “We kind of took that personally and thought that we needed to make this work and prove them all wrong.”

Over the course of the two-week Games, a total of 10 Olympic records and seven World Records would fall, which made the speedskating world stand up and take notice of the new Oval.

An impeccable attention to detail

With a reputation to now uphold, Messer says the entire team made it their mission to make the Oval a destination for major events every year.

From local to international competitions, the expectation was that the ice would be in as good a form as it was at the Olympics.

“We couldn’t stop learning as there are so many factors that affect the ice,” Messer says. “The people that come in, the lights, the building temperature, the humidity, what kind of water we’re using, the time of day — you have to get all of those things in the right spot at the right time for the right race.”

Whether it’s changing the ventilation system as was done 15 years ago, or installing new LED overhead lights this past summer, he says every alteration to the building has an immediate impact on the quality of the ice.

It has become a science made easier with data to make needed adjustments so the ice remains world class every day for a variety of users, from public skaters to Olympic athletes.

It’s that attention to detail which has earned Messer a reputation as an ice guru, having been tasked with creating fast ice internationally, including the upcoming Olympics with Hiller-Donnelly in Milano Cortina.

Making dreams reality

When the doors to the Oval opened in 1987, few could have ever imagined the impact it would have on the community.

It’s estimated the facility’s annual economic impact is more than $21.8 million thanks to visitors from around the world sleeping, eating and living in Calgary during their stays.

And it’s not just for skating, as ice-out times include volleyball, judo, taekwondo, billiards, track and field, wrestling, gymnastics, car shows, trade shows, science fairs, and exhibitions — even a Christmas market.

The Oval has also been featured in 40 television shows and films, including the famous Cool Runnings about the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.

Messer says he’s proud of the staff who continually go above and beyond to create an outstanding experience time and time again for every visitor.

With an eye to the future, fundraising efforts are underway to extend the Oval’s life for another 38 years.

The has been set up for the major redevelopment plan, which includes a new floor, wider access tunnel, running track and weight rooms, and improved accessibility.

Whether it’s for speedskating or any other community use, the hope is that future generations can enjoy it as much as people like Hiller-Donnelly have over the years.

“Everyone loves to come and train here because they know it’s going to be fast and that the ice is going to be on-point,” she says. “The Olympic Oval is where dreams become reality.”

Hiller-Donnelly will skate the Olympics in honour of her mother, who passed away in March 2025.