Fans line the parking lot at Co-op Place on Wednesday morning to send the Tigers off to the Memorial Cup in Rimouski, Que.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
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Hatters may have other weekend plans, but Friday night is likely filled up as the Medicine Hat Tigers will open the 2025 Memorial Cup tournament tonight against the host team in Rimouski, Que.
That game against the Oceanic will be broadcast at 5 p.m. in Medicine Hat, where signs in front windows, business signboards and even theatre marquees proclaim “Go Tigers Go.”
“It’s been just a great atmosphere,” said Frank Devine, who handles publicity for the Monarch Theatre, where fans have been invited to watch playoff games on the big screen for a donation to the local food bank.
“People are jumping up, yipping and yapping, but it’s completely family friendly. (For the Memorial Cup games) we’re hoping to fill the place.”
That same exuberance has also been the scene at bars and living rooms in Medicine Hat as the Tigers won 16 out of 18 games in the Western Hockey playoffs to claim their first league title in 18 years.
That includes eight wins in nine attempts at their sold-out home arena of Co-op Place, where officials are still tabulating the totals from the team’s longest playoff run since the building opened 10 years ago.
For the time being, the city and facility managers are encouraging Hatters to support local bars and restaurants that are showing the games, as well as the Monarch.
But officials are exploring the potential of opening the 6,000-seat Co-op Place for a one-game watch party should the Tigers advance to the tournament final game on June 1.
“We wouldn’t want to get in the way of businesses or the Monarch,” Co-op Place general manager Trampas Brown said on Thursday, noting that a number of issues, including licensing the broadcast, are being examined.
More would be known closer to the date, he said.
All games from the tournament in Rimouski, located south of Quebec City on the south shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, will be shown live on TSN.
The Monarch will show Medicine Hat’s other round-robin games, set for Monday and Tuesday. A tiebreaker would be held Thursday, if needed, and the semifinal next Friday before the title game on Sunday, June 1.
Devine said the Monarch plans to show all Tigers games, which he hopes run well into next weekend.
To this point, donations collected have totalled 1,000 pounds of food and $2,200 in cash for the Root Cellar. Pop and popcorn sales benefit of the historic movie house that seats 400 in total. A pregame barbecue on Second Street in front of the theatre tonight ahead of the supper-hour game will benefit the Saamis Rotary Club.
Brown’s office is preparing a larger report of the playoff run, but said the city-run facility saw more than 16,000 patrons over the first weekend of the WHL final series against the Spokane Chiefs.
That included a concert by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band between Games 1 and 2, which required turning the building around with workers taking on 400 shifts over four days to accomplish the feat and host three major events.
It also included adding as many standing-room seats as possible as fans clamoured for tickets.
“It was just really cool,” said Brown. “Our fans were excited, the fans from Spokane were great. There was no misbehaving – everyone was here to have a good time.”
During the May 17 weekend, concessions sold 1,500 bags of popcorn, 924 hot dogs and 2,800 bottles of water.
Beer and liquor sales are more difficult to tabulate, said Brown, but were “exceptional.”
He noted that 10,000 pounds of ice was used for fountain pop and mixed drinks over the four-day weekend. That equates to five tons.
