LAKE PLACID, N.Y. -- When the Olympics were awarded to Salt Lake City in the late 1990s, a lot of people expected a seismic shift in U.S. winter sports.

With new, modern facilities springing up around Salt Lake and Park City, it seemed logical that certain sports -- chief among them, bobsled and luge -- would shift their focus, and their headquarters, to Utah.

It didn't happen. And that was by design of a lot of people in the Adirondacks.

Movers and shakers in little Lake Placid, which, having hosted the 1932 and 1980 Games, still stood as America's original Olympic Village, sensed the threat, and responded. The aging bobsled track at Mount Van Hoevenberg, which the sport had passed by to the point that sliders were flying completely off the track (not good), was remodeled. And the town of about 3,000 residents redoubled its efforts to welcome the world's athletes to World Cup and World Championship competitions at its former Olympic venues.

The town, through its Olympic Region Development Authority, has succeeded. For proof, look no further than this winter, when the town, in addition to its usual slate of World Cup activities, has hosted the World Championships for both luge and bobsled/skeleton.

That's a coup for Lake Placid, which has pulled off both events with its usual low-key efficiency. Bottom line: Olympic winter sports aren't just a sidelight here. They're a driving force in the local economy.

The World Championships that have dominated much of the past month have been broadcast live in Europe, where sliding sports attract humongous TV ratings. It keeps "Lake Placid" in the world's consciousness as an international tourist destination, particularly among the sport set.

And when they get here, visitors are made to feel welcome by a community that doesn't just tolerate Olympic sports, but embraces them. Walking the streets of Placid on a world championship week is like strolling the same streets decades ago -- or those of Lillehammer, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Chamonix, Lillehammer or other quaint villages of Winter Olympics past.

Every other person in the Ben & Jerry's or The Book Store Plus is wearing a national-team bobsled parka. Athletes, residents and spectators intermingle in cafes and hotels. School children get out of school to watch bobsled races. Tourists skate on the Olympic Oval where Eric Heiden made history, then visit the Olympic Museum and take a peek at the Herb Brooks Arena, aka "Miracle On Ice" rink, on tours guided by volunteer local residents.

For winter-sport fans, it's a charming atmosphere -- one that's not likely to be replicated by the large metropolitan areas like Nagano, Salt Lake, Turin and now Vancouver, that have been chosen to host the most recent Games.

It's all about tradition

The nice thing about Lake Placid, though, is that locals don't just view winter sports as an economic engine. They're a family tradition, through and through.

Just ask John Morgan, a local luminary and former bobsledder. Morgan on Thursday stood in a new, heated, state-of-the-art bobsled garage at the base of the track at Mount Van Hoevenberg and pointed to the back wall.

"Right over there is where the finish area used to be," he said. "I stood there, with my brother, and paid a German driver 23 hundred-dollar bills for his sled."

The driver took the cash rather than pay the hefty freight back to Europe. And Morgan and his brother had an instant contending sled, which they raced in the World Championships the following season.

It was just a natural activity for the Morgan kids -- 11 of them in all. Their father, Forrest "Dew Drop" Morgan, longtime proprietor of the Dew Drop Inn in neighboring Saranac Lake (and a member of the U.S. Bartending Hall of Fame), was a bobsledder himself.

At age 9, Dew Drop Morgan attended the bobsled races at the 1932 Olympics in person, getting a ride on the shoulders of American gold medalist (and later war hero) Billy Fiske. Dew Drop went on to become a sledder himself, winning the U.S. championships and serving as a longtime U.S. team manager.

Six of Dew Drop Morgan's progeny would go on to compete in bobsled or luge. John Morgan remains a popular bobsled television commentator, and tireless advocate for the sport. His story is not unusual in Lake Placid, where second and third generations of sliders and skaters and skiers are commonplace, thanks to that multi-generation Olympic experience.

You don't have to ask twice for help in Placid

John Morgan on this day is showing off the new bobsled garage that now stands at the old finish area where he and his brother bought that German sled -- and which helps cement the role of Lake Placid, which the offices of U.S. bobsled and luge still call home, as Sliding Central, USA.

Previously, U.S. sledders prepping for events worked in a cramped, unheated garage several miles from the sliding track. This winter, the bobsled federation and its many local friends, decided to do something about it. They gathered donations of money and, most important, time and materials from local builders, contractors and union craftsmen, many of whom have family bobsled connections like Morgans. A team of volunteers put up the three-bay garage in several months, much of that in Arctic weather conditions.

Result: This month, U.S. bobsledders prepped their sleds for the World Championships in what, to them, was complete luxury. For the first time, they have a 2,400-square-foot heated bobsled garage. It's has its own fully equipped machine shop, with NASCAR-caliber Mac tools and equipment -- much of it donated by NASCAR sponsors through Geoff Bodine's "built in USA" Bo-Dyn bobsled-design team.

It's all high-tech -- and high value for sliders.

"We're definitely spoiled now," says driver Steve Holcomb, who pauses periodically to embrace, in a bear hug, the latest sleek, black USA 1 sled, dubbed the "Night Train." "We have so much room here, we don't quite know what to do with it all. It gives us just a little bit more of a home-track advantage."

Members of the previous generation like to relish the way it represents a passing of the torch -- their gift to the next crew of U.S. sliders, from the Adirondacks and beyond.

"It is for me something we never had," John Morgan says, "and something the team needed. It's mostly because these people wanted to get it done. They did it because their father was a bobsledder, their uncle was a bobsledder, or their cousin was a bobsledder."

In Lake Placid, the tradition isn't just living. It's thriving.