Assuming the Canadian Hockey League maintains its current rotation, the 2023 tournament will be held out west and the 2024 event in Ontario. The QMJHL will host again in 2025.
As Mikael Lalancette writes in Le Manic, two QMJHL teams have expressed interest so far: the Rimouski Oceanic and the Gatineau Olympiques.
The Oceanic last hosted in 2009 and the CHL has seemingly opened the door for medium size markets to get back into the bidding process. The Olympiques, meanwhile, finally have a modern building to host the event in. There is an outdoor concert space across the street from the new Slush Puppie Centre that would be perfect for hosting some Memorial Cup events.
You have to think the Moncton Wildcats are also considering a bid. The Avenir Centre has yet to host a major sports tournament since it opened. Working against the Wildcats is that a Maritime city has hosted in each of the past two QMJHL cycles (Halifax in 2019 and Saint John in 2022).
The Kamloops Blazers have further confirmed their interest in hosting next year's Memorial Cup. Like with Saint John's bid last year, the CHL will determine the host city for 2023, not the WHL.
“It’s better,” Blazers owner Tom Gaglardi told Kamloops The Week about the new bid process. “It should be decided by people who are, you know … I just think it takes biases out and the real reasons a winning team should host have got a better chance of prevailing. I’m hopeful this is a good system and a better system, but that remains to be seen.”
The wildcard in all of this: could the CHL change the Memorial Cup format in the near future? Given the financial hits teams have faced the past couple years and a new TV partner on board, it feels like a prime time to try something new. But who knows.
let's go rimouski
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