Sparkling new rowing facilities in St. Catharines or a Water Cube in Niagara Falls could galvanize the region and showcase the area for television viewers across the world.

Residents could be mingling with razor-sharp athletes as they defy human physiology on their way to winning medals in record numbers.

It all sounds so enticing.

The Olympic show that China has produced is meant to symbolize the new era of the country's economic and athletic superiority to the Western world as it stands on the precipice of global domination. But then the Olympic Games have always provided some form of narcissism by the host country.

The Nazis wanted their Olympics to enhance their supremacy as the Third Reich and the Los Angeles Games welcomed a new U.S. style of consumerism to the world of athletic spectacle.

So what could a Pan Am Games bid do for Niagara?

No doubt the region would be thrust to centre stage of the athletic world, boosting its image across the country and world-wide.

"Not only would it help us further put Toronto and the region on the international map," said Premier Dalton McGuinty, recently returned from charming Olympic officials about a Golden Horseshoe bid. "It could act as a catalyst for some important new buildings -- infrastructure and the like."

It is a tempting array of morsels that has Niagara and other Golden Horseshoe politicians salivating as they contemplate competing against Lima, Peru, Bogota, Columbia, and Caracas, Venezuela for the Games.

But there are those pesky costs that has the public balking at their leaders supporting a Games bid.

The 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro had been budgeted for $91 million, and soared once the facilities were completed to $1.9 billion. Manchester, England, is still paying the debt on its 2002 Commonwealth Games, while Montreal continues to be the poster child for Olympic-size budget disasters.

Another drawback is the Pan American games are a less than compelling event. Television coverage is limited -- the U.S. ignores it -- and the prestige of the games has suffered over the years.

So why should Niagara bother to get involved in a Golden Horseshoe bid to host the Games?

Because if we didn't climb on board, we would surely miss out on the economic benefit so dearly needed in this part of the country.