For many Canadian’s hockey is pretty much a year round sport in most town’s or Cities regardless of where your travel might take you, but for the Junior players, it’s definitely a year round sport.
Junior hockey continues to grow and no matter if you come direct from minor or the major midget program the teaching and learning level is somewhat different.
Hockey Canada has specific guidelines in place that teach and/or instruct Coaches in both the Men’s and Women’s program and it’s from these programs that the “start of tomorrow” shine.
We recently saw the Vancouver Giants move from the Pacific Coliseum to the Langley Events Centre which is a some-what smaller venue, but from both a business and operational structure it makes sense.
From minor to Major Midget to Junior, it’s onward and upward and for those fortunately enough to get selected to play for Canada’s National Junior Team, it’s about representing your Country before you reach the pro’s.
The bid was kept quiet for some time and the Vancouver committee were in deep with other areas with the closest one’s being Edmonton and Calgary.
Vancouver most recently hosted the World Junior Hockey Championship in 2006 in Vancouver, Kamloops and Kelowna where the tournament was exceptionally received.
The concept was to make it available to all corners of the Province, which it did and then some.
The bid see’s Vancouver along with Victoria will mark the 13th time that Canada has hosted the World Juniors and if the past is any indication, it’ll be a huge success.
The announcement was hosted by the Vancouver Canucks at the Rogers Arena and attended by the local media from surrounding area.
The Tournament was a collected effort between the Victoria Royals, the Vancouver Giant’s and the Vancouver Canucks.
The tournament will also mark 100 years of hockey in BC and with the growth of the sport, it can only help Canada to be a top contender for years to come.
Majority owner of the Vancouver Giants Ron Toigo told the media “What it does is it puts everybody united and supporting something.”
He continued “You put on an international event of this magnitude, everybody’s wearing Canadian jerseys, everybody’s proud about being a Canadian and it’s a real good event for the community and the economy.”
Hockey Canada President Tom Renney stated “This is about citizenship and it’s about a population that is revered around the world for one reason and one reason only we’re flat out good people, and we want to do the right thing.”
He continued “By choosing Vancouver and Victoria as the host communities for the 2019 world junior championship, I believe we’ve delivered on that.”
Toigo mentioned that all of Canada’s pool games will be played at Rogers Arena while Victoria will host Pool B during round-robin play.
It is hoped that some of the pre-tournament games will be played across the province and how knows maybe even in Delta at the Sungod Arena.
Congratulations to the committee on a successful bid in bringing this to British Columbia and “THANKS TO THE VOLUNTEERS”!!
