KAMLOOPS — A few hours before the puck drop at the Sandman Centre last night, the Western Hockey League board of governors cast their secret ballots on the host sight for the 2020 Memorial Cup.
Like last nights game, a 7-3 loss to Portland, it was a vote that didn’t go in the favour of the Blazers.
The Kelowna Rockets will host the 2020 Memorial cup.” (announcment by WHL Commissioner Ron Robison)
Before leaving for the bid vote, Kamloops committee chair Norm Daley made note that they’ve made bids for big events, and haven’t always won.
Drawing from the experience in a loss that could make the next bid better and put it over the top.
The same could be said for Kelowna’s winning Memorial Cup bid.
This was the first time for Lethbridge, the Blazers first since hosting in ’95 —– Kelowna has been to this well several times since last hosting the Memorial Cup in 2004, and everytime until now the their bucket came up empty. Persistance paid off for our friends from the Little Apple.
“Really I think that the deciding factor between Kelowna and us is that Kelowna last hosted it in 2004.” says Blazers president and COO Don Moore. “Since then they’ve tried to host the cup three times — this would be the third attempt. And I can tell you just going through it just once, it’s a process, it’s onerous, it’s hard work.”
The league won’t divulge numbers from the secret ballot vote —- but it’s believed to have been very close between Kelowna, Kamloops and Lethbridge.
In the end there’s only one winner, and this time it wasn’t Kamloops. Fans at last nights game took note.
“Naturally we hoped we’d be the host.” says this fan. “Since we seem to have a better team coming in this year, and a much better team next year.”
“We were quite interested in going to it.” says another Blazers fan. “Hopefully next time we do get it.”
Next time — ah yes, next time in the cycle of west, to Ontario to Quebec the next time it comes back west after 2020 will be 2023.
Is to early to go down that road?
That speculation was greeted with sound laughter from Don Moores. “Yah ….. when you think about the fact that Kelowna has done it three times and I admire them for it. It’s a process and you have to do a lot of work. And when you do it, you want to do it right. I’d need a couple of days to sleep on it before we make that decision.”
