2024 Memorial Cup awarded to Saginaw

The 2024 Memorial Cup is heading to Michigan.

The Canadian Hockey League announced Wednesday that the Ontario Hockey League's Saginaw Spirit will host next year's championship tournament. It's the first time the event will be held in Michigan and its first trip south of the border since 1998 in Spokane.

“We are thrilled to bring the Memorial Cup to the state of Michigan for the first time in the event’s history,” said CHL president Dan MacKenzie in a news release. “The Spirit and City of Saginaw submitted a remarkable bid and we have no doubt that they will do an outstanding job of hosting our CHL championship next year.”

And the 2024 #MemorialCup presented by @KiaCanada goes to 🥁... pic.twitter.com/CLyLWTOEYo

— OntarioHockeyLeague (@OHLHockey) March 29, 2023

The Spirit have been around since 2002 but have never won an OHL title. They did, however, have the third best record in the league at the time of the 2020 COVID shutdown.

Saginaw is headlined by 16-year-old Michael Misa, who made his OHL debut this past season after being granted exceptional player status. And what an exceptional rookie season he had. From the CHL news release:

Led by General Manager Dave Drinkill and Head Coach Chris Lazary, the Saginaw Spirit finished the 2022-23 season with a 36-27-3-2 record and will face off against the in-state rival Flint Firebirds in the first round of the OHL Playoffs beginning tomorrow night at 7:05 p.m. EST / 4:05 p.m. PST on CHL TV. On the ice, the Spirit are highlighted by Exceptional Status forward Michael Misa, whose 56 points (22G, 34A) this past season were the most by an OHL rookie. The first pick of the 2022 OHL Priority Selection also averaged 1.24 points-per-game this season — the highest of any OHL Exceptional Status player and ahead of John Tavares’ 1.18 points-per-game average with the Oshawa Generals in 2005-06.

Of the four teams who bid to host the 2024 Memorial Cup, Saginaw is the only one that qualified for this year's OHL playoffs. The Kingston Frontenacs, Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and Niagara IceDogs also submitted bids.

This is a bit of a bold move by the CHL, awarding the tournament to Saginaw over traditional (and historic) junior hockey markets Kingston and the Soo. But as we saw with Connor Bedard, the CHL is clearly putting a focus on promoting its stars. Misa will likely become the most talked about junior player when Bedard departs this summer, and awarding Saginaw the hosting rights guarantees the biggest spotlight for its biggest player. Whether you agree with that or not, the CHL is in a place right now where it needs to start making some bold moves - especially with the Memorial Cup.

The atmosphere has the potential to be excellent. The Dow Event Center is an older building (it opened in 1972) that's been renovated and upgraded over the years. It sits around 5,500 for hockey. A packed house would get loud, no doubt.

The arena is located in a downtown that, like many medium/small American cities, is a little sleepy. There's definitely some space around the arena where fan events could take place though. And speaking of sleep, there are no hotels around the rink, so you're probably going to want a car if you plan on attending the event.

Saginaw is a roughly 90-minute drive from the Sarnia border, a two hour drive from the Windsor border and a nearly four hour drive from the Soo border. It takes about 90 minutes to two hours to get to Saginaw from the Detroit airport, depending on traffic.

This year's tournament will be held in Kamloops and the 2025 event will presumably he hosted by a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League city. You have to think the Western Hockey League's US based teams are quite happy with the Saginaw news, knowing that it is a real possibility they could host a Memorial Cup again in the near future.