TOUGH COMPETITION AND TIMELINE HURDLES FOR WORLD JUNIOR HOPES
Saskatoon-regina facing off against several communities in bidding frenzy
As Saskatchewan pursues the 2023 world junior hockey championship, it's important to note that everybody's got their problems.
When Saskatoon landed the 1991 event, the city raised its collective hands in the air and said something along the lines of “thank goodness.”
Reported James Parker of the Starphoenix: With grain prices hovering lower than a Death Valley vulture, and the GST bringing fear and loathing to the retail sector, an influx of cash-carrying hockey types is a welcome sight.
“It's going to bring a lot of people into the city at a time when the tourist trade is at a low ebb,” said Dwight Percy, executive director of the Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce.
Saskatoon won the right to host that championship after a spirited, bare-knuckle scrap with a group from Hamilton that also wanted the event.
Fast-forward to Saskatoon's successful 2010 joint bid with Regina, which followed four previous rejections. There was a sense that the province might never get another chance at this particular event, given its growth and cash-flow demands.
“It's like the team that never wins the Stanley Cup or the World Series,” committee member Joe Bloski said after they finally got the hosting go-ahead. “You run, you put up a good fight, you play a good game, but you don't win. And you feel like there's something lacking; like there's a void there. Now, there's a feeling of fulfilment ...”
And now it's 2022. The problems this time are pandemic and war. Saskatoon and Regina are again making a joint bid, in this case with time constraints so tight that it's like trying to cram a 60-minute hockey game into 30 seconds.
Russia will no longer be allowed to host the 2023 world junior championship due to its invasion of Ukraine, which means it reverts to Canadian soil, and cities wanting to host on an impromptu basis can take their best shot and see what happens next.
Saskatoon and Regina have perfect-sized arenas — Regina's smaller one, fit for non-canada games; Saskatoon's bigger one, a tried and true venue for the host country and playoffs.
But there seems to be plenty of interest out there in the wider world.
Postmedia's Bruce Garrioch reports that Ottawa — initially teaming up with Quebec City on a bid — is now going it alone, with the backing of the Ottawa Senators. Quebec City, he writes, is entering the fray with Trois-rivières. Halifax and Moncton are also expected to be joint players in the bid process, and Garrioch writes that Vancouver and Victoria are in, as is a group involving the London Knights and Kitchener Rangers.
As the pandemic continues, the lure of economic-impact cash landing in the pockets of hardhit sectors is tantalizing, and the world juniors should deliver plenty of that to whoever lands the bid.
Saskatoon has hosted one recent major sports extravaganza already — the Canadian Olympic curling trials — and both prospective host cities do big-event things well.
COVID-19 lends a degree of uncertainty, of course. Where will the world, and Canada, and each individual province, be when the championship faces off on Dec. 26? It's a very good question, with no answer.
We don't know how crowd totals will be affected, or what will happen if a team suffers an outbreak, and any one of a million other nagging concerns.
But given the timeline, there's not much space to think about it right now. You just bid, and wait, and if you get it, hit the gas and take off fast.
“These buildings breathe hockey,” Hannes Ederer, the International Ice Hockey Federation's event director, said after touring Saskatchewan's facilities in 2009.
They do, it's true, and we'll know in very short order just how much — if any — hockey breathing will be done there starting Dec. 26.