Medicine Hat’s Memorial Cup bid graded well: CHL President

By JAMES TUBB on December 7, 2024.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

Medicine Hat’s bid for the 2026 Memorial Cup impressed the CHL, the league’s president says.

Dan MacKenzie poke with the News on Wednesday about Medicine Hat’s bid to host the 20206 tournament, eventually awarded to the Kelowna Rockets on Nov. 27.

Medicine Hat and Kelowna were two of five teams to submit bids, with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, Spokane Chiefs and Brandon Wheat Kings also throwing hats in the ring.

MacKenzie and Carla Keller, the CHL’s head of events, sat in on all bid presentations alongside the five-person selection committee. The committee was made up of sports industry members, including Graeme Roustan (chairman and owner of the Hockey News), Colin Campbell (NHL Sr. executive vice-president of hockey operation), Aaron Fox (chair of defence team for McDougall Gauley), Kalli Quinn (event specialist at KAQ Event Consulting) and Paul Graham (executive producer and VP at TSN).

Each bid was evaluated based on four categories: business operations, local atmosphere/community engagement, event logistics and hockey operations. MacKenzie described all the bids as “outstanding.”

When it came down to a decision, he says Medicine Hat’s wasn’t missing anything but that Kelowna’s graded higher across the four categories.

“Medicine Hat put together a great presentation, Brent Sauer did a great job, the Masers did a really, really good job of putting forward a great bid for Medicine Hat, and the site selection committee had a hard decision to make,” MacKenzie said. “When they evaluated them, they evaluated them across all four quadrants and some markets were stronger than others in certain areas. But what I’d say about Kelowna and the vibe from the site selection committee, Kelowna had really consistent scores across all four.

“I don’t know if that’s because they’ve done it before, and they had some of the infrastructure in place, but they just, you know, they scored the highest out of everyone, and so therefore, the way it works is they then win the bid.”

MacKenzie recognized that his answers likely won’t help settle disappointment in Medicine Hat. And he says the passion in the bid from Willie Desjardins and the committee was prevalent, the community involvement was evident and Co-op Place was well liked when toured.

“When our people went out there and did a visit, they walked around and said it could very easily host the event,” MacKenzie said.

He’s looking to schedule a sit-down with Medicine Hat’s bid committee for a follow-up on the process. MacKenzie was in Kelowna on Thursday for the formal announcement of the successful bid.

As for the question of Kelowna’s lost 2020 Memorial Cup due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MacKenzie says they asked the site committee to look at it as a factor but not a decision maker.

“We talked about those kinds of things, like Medicine Hat or Lethbridge who have never had it before, that could be a factor in those cities. Spokane is in the U.S. and we were just in the U.S.” MacKenzie said. “We told the selection committee at the front end, all of those things are all factors, but none of them are disqualifiers and none of them should come into your decision-making process. This is an open process, everyone’s on the same playing field and you should make your decision based on the bids and the presentations.”

He hopes the City of Medicine Hat and the Tigers continue to push to host CHL events whether it be another Memorial Cup or the CHL vs. U.S. prospects game. The new prospect showcase will be hosted in the WHL next season following a pair of games in Ontario on Nov. 26 and 27.

MacKenzie says Medicine Hat would fit the bill to host that event, as would Lethbridge, both providing a compelling argument with the proximity of one another. London and Oshawa, Ont. are a little under two hours apart and hosted the games this year.

He says the prospects game hosts come from the recommendation of the commissioner of the host league, Dan Near, a process he hopes would be worked out in early 2025.

“I would imagine if there was interest in Medicine Hat and Lethbridge, it would be a pretty compelling argument, given proximity and the quality of the buildings,” MacKenzie said.

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