Enthusiasm, support needed if Hat is to attract high-level events

The tagline on a local bid to host an international developmental hockey tournament next year might as well be “Medicine Hat is ready to take that next step.”

Those were the words of bid chairman Ron Webb, whose group earned council backing on Tuesday to bring the World Under 17 Hockey Challenge to the city and the Canalta Centre in November 2018.

We’d like to think so as well; that Medicine Hat can step up to the plate, support the event and the underlying goal of bringing bigger, better events to the city.

Convincing Hatters, who’ve been a choosy, unimpressed bunch, might be a more difficult task.

Some have surely noted already that the tournament is not an international championship. It is more like a high-calibre, scouting combine of top national team prospects of Canada and five other countries.

It could draw about 1,100 scouts, officials, players and their families to the city, but a majority of hockey fans probably haven’t heard of it.

However, those who complain that it’s not the Memorial Cup or the World Junior Tournament are stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy that “nothing good ever happens in Medicine Hat.”

In a similar vein, those Hatters who sit on their wallets when mid-range acts are booked to play the Canalta Centre are among the chief reasons why larger acts skip the city.

These are long-standing circular problems in need of action above promises or go-nowhere grumbling.

The U17 local bid committee — made up 17 movers in the community — seems to know this and has the cart ready for the horse and not the other way around.

If unsuccessful, they say, the quality of the proposal should signal to Hockey Canada that Medicine Hat is serious about future opportunities.

If the tournament is secured, Hatters should be on notice that it’s a job interview.

It’s often repeated that large events are done well in Medicine Hat, which has hosted both winter and summer Alberta games since 2008, and with notable success last winter.

The next step, however, for large multi-sport events is a large leap to Western Canadian Games or Canada Games. Such events require a decade of planning and serious money.

Medicine Hat will host the Alberta Summer Special Olympics this weekend, then the Canadian Little League championships next month. Both are niche events and a feather in the cap of organizers, but in the hard analysis are not the grand “sports tourism” vision being discussed by economic developers and tourism industry in this city.

That mid- to high level of event is a danger of crowding out mid-sized cities — at least to the casual but interested observer.

Continental Cups of Curling that were staged locally about 10 years ago — profitable one year, then not the next — have found a permanent home in Las Vegas.

The World Juniors are now exclusively held in NHLsized arenas in hopes of huge crowds and profits. Toronto and Montreal have jointly hosted two of the last four tournaments.

A Memorial Cup tournament has topped the local wishlist since the Tigers zoomed to the 2004 edition in Kelowna.

A decade or so and a new arena later, the prospect still remains doubtful considering the level of enthusiasm from the team, which would have to lead a Memorial Cup bid.

It’s tough, however, to plan big when attendance and season ticket sales fall during the first two years in a state-of-the-art building.

In the sports tourism game, Medicine Hat had better up its game.

So, too, Medicine Hatters, if we want to get to that next step.