A delegation of Canadian Hockey League representatives, along with title sponsors and event organizers, toured Halifax on Thursday morning to get a feel for the city and its facilities ahead of the Memorial Cup, set to start May 17th.
“We’re showing them around and getting them excited … and we’re showing them all the great things that Halifax has to offer, ” said Carla Graansma, Canadian Hockey League manager of national events.
“We also looked at the location where the street fest will be, which is on Argyle Street, and we’ve toured your beautiful new [Halifax] Convention Centre.”
This is the Halifax Mooseheads’ 25th anniversary season and the 101st Memorial Cup Championship.
As hosts, the Mooseheads will receive a bye into the four-team tournament that includes the winners from the Ontario Hockey League, Western Hockey League, and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
Putting on the 10-day tournament is a big task and can become somewhat of an economic burden for the host franchise, as the Regina Pats who played host the to the Memorial Cup in 2018 can attest.
Regina organizing chair Shaun Semple told Global News the organization would lose close to $1 million due to a lack of ticket sales that year, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem here for the Mooseheads, as staff says they’ve already sold 85 percent of the tickets.
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“Our owner made it very clear from the get-go when we were bidding for this event as a whole that we wanted this to be about junior hockey fans, at junior hockey prices and this event is priced like that,” said Mooseheads president Brian Urquhart.
To attend a game, fans won’t have to break the bank. Urquhart says the ticket prices for the 2019 Memorial Cup are the lowest they’ve been in a decade.
Urquhart says that’s been the plan all along, with the hope to entice more people to come out and get up close and personal with the national championship.
When it comes to winning, it’s the local economy that will stand to earn the most. Estimates from last year’s Memorial Cup in Regina suggest that close to $11 million was injected back into to the community, as a direct result of the tournament.
“I will say that hotels and restaurants are obviously going to be extremely busy during this event,” said Urquhart.
“There is a number of people that come in for this event. It’s upwards of 5,000 hotel nights.”
Halifax hosted the Memorial Cup during the 1999-2000 season and won the tournament when it was held in Saskatoon in 2013, when they beat the Portland Winterhawks 6-4 in the final.
The Mooseheads open the round-robin portion of the 2019 Memorial Cup tournament on May 17th when they play the winner of the Western Hockey League.
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