Brandon used as inspiration for Memorial Cup

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This article was published 28/04/2016 (3613 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RED DEER, Alta. — The Memorial Cup is being hosted in a mid-sized Prairie city with a perpetually competitive Western Hockey League franchise.

The event will be held almost entirely under one roof of a multi-use facility in a province that hasn’t hosted the Canadian Hockey League championship in a long time. The volunteer base in the community has a long history of putting on successful events, with several of them involving national curling championships.

Sound familiar?

The parallels between Brandon hosting in 2010 and Red Deer putting on the event in 2016 aren’t lost on host committee co-chair Merrick Sutter, who is the senior vice-president of the Rebels.

A big part of that is the Enmax Centrium, a smaller version of the Keystone Centre.

“It’s very similar to Brandon and from the events that I’ve seen it’s very unique,” Sutter said. “In a lot of cases, you have an arena that’s sitting by itself and you have to erect a series of temporary tents and infrastructure to do all of the other things or have it offsite.”

The city landed the event in

October 2014. Planning had actually begun before that so issues like dressing rooms and hotels had been considered and a business plan was in place.

Strangely, the city of 100,000 located midway between Calgary and Edmonton is hosting Alberta’s first Memorial Cup since 1974.

Not only do the volunteers lack experience in hosting a Memorial Cup, only a handful have even attended one after several went to Quebec last spring. But just like in Brandon, a long history of hosting bodes well for the event.

“The community has had Briers and Scotties so there have been scalable events,” Sutter said. “It’s not the same sport and the sporting component is different, but a lot of the logistics and operational procedures are the same. We have a lot of people on our committee from the last time the Scotties was here in 2012. Things like transportation and volunteers, those are big things that are pretty much the same.”

The Rebels staff is involved in certain areas— such as tickets — but a host committee comprised of community members and 10 to 12 subcommittees are doing the heavy lifting. Host committee meetings that were monthly are now weekly as the countdown ticks to less than a month until the event begins on Friday, May 20.

The teams arrive on May 18.

Because there is only one ice surface in the Centrium, the teams will practise in the building on the days they are playing, with a practice facility available to them about five minutes away on the days they aren’t.

But the Centrium has plenty of room to make it a fun event for fans, with additional space in the large facility that will host the Molson Hockey House and a beer garden, which should prove popular with the games starting at 5 and 6 p.m., local time.

“It helps us create an event more so than just a hockey tournament,” Sutter said. “That’s really what this is. It’s an event. You don’t know whether the host team is going to go 3-0 or 0-3. Anything can happen, so you really need to put on a solid event that insulates itself from what can happen with hockey.”

The event has sparked plenty of excitement in the community. Sutter said that 93 per cent of the 4,250 Rebels’ season-ticket holders bought Memorial Cup packages last summer. Four hundred more packages quickly sold out in December.

The team averaged 600 more fans per game this season and has had strong playoff attendance as well.

“It’s no different than Brandon,” Sutter said. “For a community of 95,000 or 100,000, to sell 7,000 is pretty impressive feat by our fans. That’s not easy to do.”

The host committee received an unexpected bonus when both the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames were eliminated from the playoffs, leaving the Rebels and the Memorial Cup as the last hockey event standing in Alberta.

But the Memorial Cup is being staged this year in a province hit hard by the downturn in oil prices.

“Given the economic climate, when you have your Rebels’ season and then you have this and you have playoffs, it becomes an expensive year for your fans,” Sutter said. “We’re very pleased with where we’re at.”

The final number of seats that will be available hasn’t been determined — the final count depends on TV placements, standing room tickets and chairs placed around the concourse — but the rough capacity is up to 7,000, with crowds upwards of 6,800 expected for each game.

Each team has a certain number of tickets held back for it, and additional single game tickets will also be released. Four of the games are completely sold out, with fewer than 100 tickets available for the other four.

With planning now having graduated from theoretical to actual tickets and banners arriving, Sutter said the nearness of the event has a galvanizing impact.

“I’m excited,” Sutter said. “When you’re involved in all of the nuts-and-bolts details, at times it’s hard to be because you’re worried about all these little things. But as it gets closer, it gets more exciting. We’ll probably appreciate it more after it’s gone than when it’s actually. I’m sure they’ll be a reflection period after the event is done.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @PerryBergson

Memorial Cup

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE:

Friday, May 20 — OHL vs. RD, 8 p.m.

Saturday, May 21 — WHL vs. QMJHL, 7 p.m.

Sunday, May 22 — RD vs. QMJHL, 7 p.m.

Monday, May 23 — WHL vs. OHL, 8 p.m.

Tuesday, May 24 — QMJHL vs. OHL, 8 p.m.

Wednesday, May 25 — RD vs. WHL, 8 p.m.

Thurdsay, May 26 — Semifinal, 8 p.m.

Friday, May 27 — Final, 8 p.m.