Tuesday, August 31, 2010

REPORT: BIG ANNOUNCEMENT COMING TOMORROW

A big announcement is expected to be made by the Canadian Hockey League in Saint John tomorrow.

According to Yahoo! Sports blogger Neate Sager on Twitter, the “CHL is awarding a major international event to Saint John tomorrow.”

This has been checked over, and we are taking about New Brunswick and not Newfoundland here. Rumors have been flying about St. John’s hosting a Subway Super Series game this year.

There are really only three CHL sanctioned on-ice events: the Super Series, the Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game, and the MasterCard Memorial Cup.

The Memorial Cup has already been awarded to Mississauga for this season and an announcement on the 2012 award winner is expected to come next April.

It would be odd if Saint John was awarded a Super Series game after hosting one of the two Quebec Major Junior Hockey League games in 2008 along with Cape Breton. Shawinigan and Drummondville hosted last year. Would the QMJHL skip over 15 other teams and award hosting duties back to the Sea Dogs?

The Sea Dogs have stated that they have plans to try and host the Top Prospects Game in the future. The team was rumored to be a contender for the event last season but it was awarded to the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires.

It would make sense for the CHL to award the two day festivities to Saint John given that they have four top prospects in their lineup for the 2011 NHL Draft in Nathan Beaulieu, Tomas Jurco, Zach Phillips, and Jonathan Huberdeau.

But the possibility of the CHL awarding Saint John the event would be odd because it would be over a month earlier then when Windsor was awarded the game last year.

No matter what it is, Saint John area fans should be in for a treat.

2 comments:

  1. SO when is it? That might have been a good thing to include in the article? lol

    ReplyDelete
  2. If we had that info, we'd post it. The Super Series is in November, the Prospects game in January, the Mem. Cup in May.

    ReplyDelete