Moncton’s Mayor says the World Junior Hockey Championship comes at the perfect time.
Dawn Arnold feels it’s exactly what the city needs as we continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, adding “The restaurants, the bars. We just need this infusion of liveliness and people coming to our community from all over. We have already had calls to our house asking if we have an extra bed. It’s really exciting for the whole community.”
Arnold stated that she has also been told that hotels are beginning to book up.
“Our first really big opportunity to show the world that we have the infrastructure in place and we have the capabilities. We have everything it takes to host events like this,” added Arnold. “This will be a game changer for the Avenir Centre. It has been a long time goal of ours to get this. When we were building the Avenir centre, this was really the vision to be able to attract world class international events like this. We are great hosts and this is what it’s all about.”
Hockey New Brunswick had a hand in discussions when the bid was made for the World Juniors at the beginning of April.
“We’ve been involved since since day one that started about six weeks ago with the respective governments, with the city of Halifax and Moncton, with the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League teams, with the the host venues, the Avenir Centre and Scotiabank Centre,” said Executive Director Nic Jansen. “Normally, there would be two to three years into planning to host the World Juniors. It is definitely a shorter runway than what the host organizer committee would have. I think we are up for the challenge.”
He feels this event is a great opportunity for the province as a whole, saying “We don’t have any NHL teams, so this will be the the highest calibre the most people can witness and a lot of people have gone to the World Juniors in previous years. To have it right in our backyard is outstanding. It’ll be an amazing opportunity for people to watch the game. I think there will be economic spinoffs but also for our hockey community. Something for them (players) to strive for, towards potentially playing for Team Canada themselves. So it’ll be outstanding.”
With the World Juniors set for December 26 to January 5, there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done.
“It’s still early in the process, but our hope would be that we’re able to run some type of ancillary events in conjunction with the tournament, whether it be Fan Fest whether it be player camps, whether it be coaching clinics,” Jansen added.
It was announced on Thursday, Halifax and Moncton will host the 2023 World Juniors Hockey Championship. Russia was scheduled to host the tournament but the I-I-H-F cancelled after the invasion of Ukraine.
