By Lethbridge News Now staff

Lethbridge City Council gets behind Hurricanes bid for Memorial Cup

Aug 21, 2018 | 4:54 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB — The Lethbridge Hurricanes’ bid to host the 2020 MasterCard Memorial Cup now has the financial support of Lethbridge City Council.

They voted 7-1 in favour of committing $1 million in support if the bid is successful. Of that money, $750,000 would be cash with an additional $250,000 in-kind for ENMAX Centre and the Lethbridge Soccer Centre facility costs, and the labour and equipment costs associated with hosting the event.

Councillor Joe Mauro was the lone vote against the motion.

“A million dollars is a lot. When I look at the $4.1 million of the total amount. We’re kicking in a lot of money. If it was a little bit less, I might be able to go that way. But for a million dollars, on something like this, when we’re hearing that the hosting fee needs to be somewhere in the $2.8 million… or whatever that number is. I’m just tryin to be realistic here… the amount of money that I’m being asked to spend here on behalf of the taxpayer…I’m just not at the point where I can put my hand up to support one million dollars of taxpayers dollars going into a bid.” 

However, the rest of City Council was on board.

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“Lethbridge has a proud history and legacy of hosting renowned events,” said Councillor Ryan Parker. “I think we have a community that believes in hockey. We have an organization that’s owned by the community…There’s some things that can’t be measured in dollars and cents. I think if we don’t ask, we don’t know if we’re going to get it. We’re going to put our best foot forward.” 

“What it’s really about is community pride,” said Mayor Chis Spearman following the vote. “People will say, ‘Yeah, $750,000 in cash and $250,000 in kind, it’s another million dollars,’ but we asked the city treasurer and we’ve accumulated so far almost $3 million in surpluses, so we can set $1 million of that aside and we can use that for a bid like this.

“It’s a one-time opportunity – the team is ready to compete for the Memorial Cup and we’ll have the right players in two years and we want to make sure we have a great chance,” continued Spearman. “I think that’s going to generate a lot of excitement, and if we actually pull it off, that’ll be a huge legacy for the City of Lethbridge and hockey in our city.”

The Hurricanes are in the running for the tournament against three other organizations – the Kamloops Blazers, Kelowna Rockets, and Victoria Royals. The successful bid will be announced Oct. 3, 2018, at which time $250,000 would be due, followed by additional installments of $250,000 each on Apr. 1, 2019 and Jan. 2, 2020.

Bid Committee Chair Bill Reddick believes this year’s bid is significantly different from any bids that were made to host the cup in previous years. 

“I think Lethbridge has come a long way. We’ve got the Enmax Centre now that is capable of hosting the event. We’ve got the airport now that’s up and running and can take on an event like this. The hotels, the restaurants and the people that have just got behind similar events of this magnitude that run without a hitch. We’re ready.” 

The funding would come from the Municipal Revenue Stabilization Reserve as a one-time allocation from 2015-2018 operating budget surplus.

When asked about taking the money from the MRSR because the 2019-2022 Major Community Events Grant Budget money has already been promised to other events, Spearman said he didn’t believe it was opening the door for other groups to also ask for money from the same reserve.

“Not necessarily. Any events like that would have to have a significant national stature. And we know that the Memorial Cup is featured every night for 10 days and there aren’t many events in Canada that have that kind of national stature.”

According to City Treasurer Hailey Pinksen, the MRSR currently has a surplus of about $3 million, with another $2 million expected by the end of the year. 

The Provincial Government has also been asked to kick in some money, however there has not been any formal commitment from the province for any money yet. 

According to the bid committee’s predictions, the event could generate up to $13 million in economic spinoff for the city. Any profit from the event would be put into a legacy fund to help out organizations like KidsSport.