Discussions

The Wheat Kings announced today that they intend to bid on hosting the 2026 Memorial Cup. The Keystone is a great facility and will be up to date by then. The team should be really really good if the young talent continues to round into form. What are your thoughts? Will they get it? Can Brandon beat out cities like Kelowna (also intending to bid)? It sure would be awesome to have it back here again.

With the cup being help in the USA last year and also being a OHL Team, Quebec next years and Kamloops in 2023 ( also a WHL west division team) from a CHL optics it makes total sense. From a facility requirement would suggest that it would check all boxes with a main arena and two practice facilities under one roof. On top of that you have a owner of the Wheat Kings that is not afraid to take on the challenge and a community that will back it 100% . The 2010 cup we hosted was a big success!! No brainer in my eyes. Good luck on the bid it would be great !!

I couldn't''t find any data on the impact for the City of Brandon for when the 2010 Memorial Cup was here, but Saginaw, Michigan will be hosting The Cup this year and they estimate the monetary impact for the city will around 24 Million. This would be great for the bars, restaurants, Keystone Centre and The City of Brandon as a whole.  
Going to be a lot of work and a lot of volunteers. The volunteers thing might be the biggest challenge.

The Memorial Cup in 2010 was awesome. This would be amazing if they won the chance to host. I have no doubt that it would be done even better than last time.  
 
I don’t think there will be a lack of volunteers. There are perks that come with hosting such as jackets, seeing the games, etc.  
 
What a great experience to see. Hope they are successful!

Saskatoon hosted in 2013. But yes it would be great to have it back in Brandon again.

arena already has most of the upgrades required like the suites. New seats going in now. Not sure what other upgrades they will try to do for it.

I can say is that having the memorial cup here in 2010 was amazing and I’d be first in line for tickets if it came here again. I think the biggest plus is with Jacobsons kid on the team and the young talent coming up Jacobson will do absolutely everything in his power to make this bid successful. Whatever it takes, he’ll do it.

Shoot you’re right, thx for that. Between Saskatoon and Regina you could say Sask has had its fair share lately then. Also Red Deer hosted in 2016 as an Alberta team. Before Kamloops had hosted in 2023 it was four straight from the Eastern Conference (Brandon, Saskatoon, Red Deer, Regina):  
https://chl.ca/memorial-cup-tournament-results/  
 
Just found this story. Sounds like the deadline to indicate intent to bid was actually last Friday. From the story Kelowna had said they are bidding (last hosted 2004).  
https://medicinehatnews.com/sports/local-sports/2024/06/15/chl-to-announce-whl-teams-who-submitted-intent-to-bid-for-mem-cup/  
 
Can’t find reference to any other teams announcing, but there’s a FB group of Tigers fans pushing for them to put in a bid. Some chatter in that group that a CHL deadline to announce all teams who bid has been pushed back.