Wheaties to bid on 2026 Memorial Cup

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This article was published 22/06/2024 (533 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon Wheat Kings have officially declared their intent to bid for the 2026 Memorial Cup.

In partnership with the Keystone Centre, the Western Hockey League club is looking to host the national major junior championship for the first time since 2010.

The team, facility and city made the joint announcement during a 10-minute presentation early Friday morning on the floor of Westoba Place, where the ice is out for the summer.

“It feels good,” Wheat Kings owner Jared Jacobson said. “It’s hard to keep a secret, especially in Brandon, a small town, so it’s awesome to get the community involved and get the community support and get everyone going and excited about this as part of the bid process. I think that’s huge.

“Now we can take a deep breath and talk to everyone and see who’s interested in helping out.”

The other WHL cities expected to bid for the Canadian Hockey League championship are Portland, Ore., Spokane, Wash., Kelowna, B.C., Lethbridge, Alta., and Medicine Hat, Alta.

Keystone Centre general manager Connie Lawrence said the 540,000 square feet of indoor space built on 90 acres provides an uncommon venue for large events. She and several others made a trip to the most recent Memorial Cup in Saginaw, Mich., and it drove home an important point for the bid process.

“You don’t actually have to step outside of the facility,” Lawrence said. “You have a practice facility inside, you have the main arena inside, you have the hotel attached, you have absolutely everything under one roof. There isn’t anything you have to go and look for, and I think that’s so unique.”

NEXT STEP

Jason Roblin, who is heading up the Brandon bid committee, said the work began in January and has picked up in the last three months. He said the bid process is simple.

“There is a written component to it,” Roblin said. “It’s very structured what they want in it, and then there’s a video with, I believe, a five-minute narration limit … It’s also very structured, so we’re going to have to work carefully to make sure we include all the things that are important.”

While Roblin has taken the lead role, everyone agrees it’s a group effort. That’s especially true when it comes to the Keystone Centre, which has the accrued experience from five decades of hosting major events.

“For ourselves as a building, we deal with a lot of these costs, through similar events like concerts and large building events,” Lawrence said. “Jason has reached out asking, ‘Does this cover it? What does this cost? What did we need?’ I think it’s fair to say Jason is the lead, but we’re all here to support him and give him whatever knowledge we have to make this all happen.”

While the three individual leagues — the WHL, Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League — once chose their own hosts, the final selection is now settled upon by the CHL, with the bid process made to a panel of four CHL appointees in August. The final decision is expected to be revealed in mid-December.

Another part of the process is the state of the hockey team. The host has to show it can compete in the national event, and Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray is comfortable with where his team will be at in two years.

“I think it’s one of the biggest questions you have to ask yourself honestly as an organization,” Murray said. “I think we can answer that by saying we’re excited where we’re at. We have a strong group of core players who at 19 … are going to be elite players at this level and a lot of young high-end prospects coming into the organization.”

When he purchased the team in September 2020, Jacobson’s focus was ensuring it would be competitive. With the work done by the hockey operations staff, the team’s window began to open, with the 2025-26 season potentially a very good one based on the returning players.

But the Memorial Cup wasn’t on his mind when he bought the team from Kelly McCrimmon.

“Did I plan it? No,” Jacobson said. “As things went along here the last couple of years, you see where you’re at and the timing of what’s available and that’s when things start to come to fruition, and think that kind of matches our cycle so maybe we should take a look at it.”

TIME FRAME

While it may seem like a short time ago the championship was here, a 16-year gap between events isn’t unprecedented. When Kelowna was awarded the 2020 event that was later cancelled due to COVID, they had last hosted in 2004. In addition, the 2025 edition of the tournament is set for Rimouski, Que., which coincidentally hosted in 2009, a year before Brandon.

“Rimouski has the same window and they’re hosting this year, and we hosted the year after last time, so I don’t think it’s a factor,” Roblin said. “I think the bid process is the most important factor, and the competitiveness of the hockey team.”

Jacobson agreed.

“Maybe the stars will align for us again,” Jacobson said. “It would be pretty cool.”

Since Brandon hosted last, the subsequent WHL hosts have been Saskatoon in 2013, Red Deer in 2016, Regina in 2019 and Kamloops in 2023. The event wasn’t held in 2020 or 2021 due to the pandemic.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett was also on hand for the official announcement. He said the city has its accommodation fund that it can use to support the event, but noted the city will leave the bid process with the Wheat Kings and the Keystone Centre.

But he’s certainly hopeful they’ll be successful.

“It would be fantastic,” Fawcett said. “It really would be. The scale is larger but we just had the 55-Plus Games with 150 volunteers, 1,200 registrants just in the last three days in Brandon. We do a good job of those things and our community always gets behind them.”

TEAM HISTORY

The Wheat Kings have appeared in six Memorial Cups — in 1949, 1979, 1995, 1996, 2010 and 2016. Their best finish in the modern era was second place in 1979, when they fell in overtime to the Peterborough Petes.

Murray brings a unique perspective to the Memorial Cup bid. In 1995, the Kamloops Blazers were hosting the championship, and when they topped Brandon in the final, the Wheat Kings earned a spot as WHL representative.

Brandon went 1-2 in the round-robin and lost 2-1 to the Detroit Jr. Red Wings in the semifinal.

“You look back over the years, and playing in the Memorial Cup, although we came up short, it was definitely a highlight in my playing career,” Murray said. Manitoba was actually a frequent host at one time, but that goes back a lot of decades.

Between 1917 and 1959, when the Memorial Cup was a series between two top clubs instead of a four-team event, Winnipeg staged it 13 times.

Prior to 2010, Brandon previously held some Memorial Cup games in partnership with a pair of main hosts — Regina in 1980 and Winnipeg in 1949, 1953 and 1959.

In 1972, the Memorial Cup began to be awarded to the CHL champions, although it didn’t adopt the current format with a host and the three league champions until 1983.

“I don’t know if every market is able to do it,” Jacobson said. “I know lots of markets want to do it, but there are a lot of things that go into the bid. It’s definitely a big job.”

2010 TOURNAMENT

Brandon edged the Everett Silvertips and Kelowna for the right to host the Memorial Cup on Oct. 15, 2008 when it won a majority vote of the WHL board of governors.

The Keystone Centre underwent a major transformation to prepare, most prominently with the addition of the seven suites that now ring the east side of the rink.

By coincidence, the building is currently undergoing another massive upgrade, with the old, red Winnipeg Arena seats being replaced by new wider black ones, plus the installation of air conditioning and dehumidification for the first time and major work eventually being done to the bathrooms.

Jacobson attended the 2010 Memorial Cup as a fan and sponsor, and purchased a suite to help out when they were being constructed.

“I was definitely here every game with customers,” Jacobson said. “It was a great event. It was such a fun time. You could see the amount of people who came from all over. It wasn’t just Brandon or Manitoba, it was a national event and you could feel it. It was really exciting to be a part of.”

After falling 9-3 to the Windsor Spitfires in the opener on May 14, 2010, Brandon beat the Moncton Wildcats 4-0 on May 16 and fell 5-1 to the Calgary Hitmen on May 19.

The one victory was enough, with winless Moncton eliminated and Brandon advancing to the semifinal against their perennial playoff rival, Calgary.

On May 21, Wheat Kings forward Jay Fehr scored three minutes into overtime to give the hosts a 5-4 victory. The final didn’t go quite as well the next day, with Taylor Hall, Zack Kassian and the Spitfires blasting the Wheat Kings 9-1 in front of 5,609 fans.

Lawrence chuckled when asked if any institutional memory remains from the 2010 event, which is a long time in terms of staff and volunteers.

“It is, but everyone always talks about,” Lawrence said. “You look in the main area and the seven suites that are at the top, that’s one of things that absolutely everybody remembers because those suites were put in for 2010 and they’ve been full ever since. There’s a waiting list.

“And I think the excitement. Everyone remembers what it was like in the Manitoba Room. That was like the entertainment room so everybody talks about that.”

She noted there is also memorablia from the tournament in one of the display cases near the ticket booth in the concourse.

Fawcett also attended games during the 2010 Memorial Cup, and has a specific memory of Hall getting thundered by a massive hit. He said the entire event was outstanding.

“It was great,” Fawcett said. “There was a buzz around the community and that Wheat Kings team was so enjoyable to watch, too. We have that again. We have these young kids who are coming up who are really good.”

Roblin said southwestern Manitoba has an excellent volunteer base, adding big events always seem to activate it. He expects plenty of those people will be back if the city gets another chance to showcase its big-event hospitality.

“Hosting events like this keeps Brandon on the map,” Roblin said. “When you’re trying to bring in people to work in your business and they’re from out of the town, they’ll say ‘Oh Brandon, you hosted the Memorial Cup or you guys hosted the Brier or PBR goes there.’

“These events are important to the community, just to keep us relevant.”

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