HOST CITY ANNOUNCED THURSDAY

SAINT JOHN – We are now just days away from finding out who will host the 2012 MasterCard Memorial Cup. The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League will hold a press conference in Montreal on Thursday afternoon to award the tournament to either the Shawinigan Cataractes, Saint John Sea Dogs, Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, or Halifax Mooseheads.

It has been fairly quiet on the Memorial Cup front over the past few weeks but it surely pick up over the next 48 hours.

In today’s Telegraph-Journal, Peter McGuire talks to some political leaders about Saint John’s bid and the process of selecting the host city.

Each bid is graded on the following criteria: logistics (accreditation, transportation, lodging and volunteers), hockey operations, arena, organizing committee, marketing, hosting of CHL events, and finances.

Everything points towards Saint John’s and Shawinigan’s bid who, at the moment, appear to have all the aspects needed to host the tournament.

There has been absolutely no buzz at all surrounding Halifax’s bid while Cape Breton still believes they will have a team good enough to host next year. From the Cape Breton Post’s Mario Durocher interview earlier this week:

Q: The moves you did make, are you confident that you’ll have a competitive team for the 2012 Memorial Cup tournament?

A: That’s for sure. That’s what we presented to the selection committee. To start, we’ll have 10 guys who will be 19 to start the season. That will make a big difference. I have two overagers already and I have enough picks to get an experienced goalie. We have a European pick that I can look for a younger guy or keep Denis Kindl and I think we need a defensive defenceman. I think we can probably fill up at the draft...We have a lot of picks even at Christmas time to get even better for the Memorial Cup. We had 41 points, and I think we can get more than 80 points next year with the team we’ll have.

Thursday will be interesting.