Nearly 6,200 fans packed into Co-op Place on Sunday, marking the largest crowd to ever attend a home game for the Medicine Hat Tigers. They beat Connor Bedard's Regina Pats by a score of 5-1.--NEWS PHOTO SCOTT SCHMIDT
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
It was a special Sunday afternoon at Co-op Place.
A sell-out crowd of 6,178 hockey fans made history at the Medicine Hat Tigers’ 5-1 win over the Regina Pats. The turnout set the record as the Tigers’ highest attended home game, with the most people inside Co-op Place since its opening in 2015.
Tigers’ forward Dallon Melin, who scored a penalty shot goal in the win, says it was a special evening to be part of.
“This is one of the games where you only get a couple of these in your career,” Melin said. “It’s sold out, everyone’s on the edge of their seat and you can just feel it in the room before the game, you can feel it when you drive into the parking lot. It was a really cool night.”
The talk and major draw of Sunday’s game was Regina forward Connor Bedard, who is coming off breaking records while winning gold for Canada at the World Juniors and has taken the hockey world by storm, selling out buildings across the WHL in 2023.
Matt Piotrowski and his son Greyson were in attendance Sunday after Greyson’s hockey game where he’d scored five goals. Piotrowski bought the tickets three months ahead of time. It was his sixth Tigers game of the year and he was happy to see Bedard, but especially to see it sold out.
“It’s long overdue,” Piotrowski said. “It’s one of those things, local support is much needed in this community and it goes to show that when push comes to shove, the community does support these minor league kids, which is good to see.”
The matinee contest sold out the main, lower bowl well in advance, leading to the upper deck at Co-op Place opening a few rows at a time. Those sold as quickly as they were made available.
Eventually, even some standing-room-only overflow tickets were created and sold.
Because of the expected large attendance, the city organized two free buses to shuttle fans to and from the game – one from Medicine Hat Mall and one from Big Marble Go Centre.
Trampas Brown, the city’s manager of guest experience and operations, told the News a couple hundred people utilized the bussing service, and he praised the work of Co-op Place and city staff during their first sold-out game.
“It was such an amazing vibe in the building,” Brown said. “Everybody, the volunteers at the doors to the kids in the concession, our servers to our bar; I ended up bartending for some time Sunday as well. I’m just so proud of our team, I really feel like we knocked this one out of the park. I know that’s a baseball analogy not a hockey one but I’m just so proud.
“It was kind of all hands on deck, so it made for a great day and I can’t wait to do it again.”
He says team leads within the arena and events crew will meet this week to discuss how the game went and how they can improve for the next big crowd. He already knows the plan is to run buses more frequently than every 20 minutes, and says they will advertise for them a little more ahead of time.
WILD 94.5 host Jesse Christianson has been hosting Tigers games for close to 10 years, he was the host for the final game at The Arena and was part of the first contest in Co-op Place. He gave a pregame speech at ice level to hype up the crowd and says he had goosebumps from their reaction.
Christianson believes the crowd Sunday can be a foreshadow for the future and not just a one- or two-time thing.
“I really hope the (people) of Medicine Hat jump on this bandwagon whether they are a die hard and were there in the 11-win season, or they’re just jumping on now because they’re excited for what the future holds,” Christianson said. “This is a Tigers team that is turning heads right now and I believe one to three years down the road, will turn heads again.”
Editors note: A previous version of the story stated Dallon Melin scored a shootout goal. It was a penalty shot.
