Victoria will host Hockey Day in Canada next year

Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada will be hosted from Ship Point at the Inner Harbour on Jan. 20, 2024.

Hockey Night in Canada host Ron MacLean will make the announcement next Monday at 4:30 p.m. during a broadcast of the Stanley Cup final on Sportsnet.

The Victoria Hockey Legacy Society, the local organizing committee, confirmed that Victoria was picked as host and a formal announcement will be made next Tuesday at Ship Point. Joel Darling, executive producer of Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada, will be on hand.

The 14-hour national show, broadcast annually on Sportsnet, will feature all seven Canadian NHL teams in action, with events at Ship Point that will include kids’ games on a synthetic ice surface and concerts on adjacent stages.

The broadcast will include segments on Island hockey history and live feeds from a Victoria Royals Western Hockey League game that day at Saveon-Foods Memorial Centre.

The Stanley Cup will be in town for the occasion, 99 years after the Victoria Cougars won it.

According to the Victoria Hockey Legacy Society, headed by businessman John Wilson, the broadcast has been attracting about 10 million viewers during its 14 hours.

It was first broadcast in 2000, from Toronto. This year’s Hockey Day in Canada took place in Owen Sound, Ont., and in 2022, it was in Scarborough, Ont. In January 2020 it was in Yellowknife.

The budget to host the event is $850,000, says the Victoria society. The province and Destination Greater Victoria are contributing $100,000 each. The City of Victoria is giving $100,000 in cash and in-kind services such as bleachers and stages totalling another $100,000. The rest will come from corporate sponsorships.

“Sports are important in community building and this will provide remarkable exposure for the city,” Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto has said. “It’s not often you get this kind of opportunity and visibility to showcase Victoria in the middle of winter.”

Keith Wells, executive director of the Greater Victoria Sport Tourism Commission, said the event will serve as a platform “to tell our greatest hockey stories, from the Patricks and the 1925 Stanley Cup to the pro Maple Leafs of the 1960s and to our later players such as the Courtnalls and Grant Fuhr.”