Discussions

This afternoon at a special meeting City Council joined the Province in throwing it's weight behind a Brandon bid for the 2010 Memorial Cup, the economic impact of which would be from 8 to 10 million dollars for Brandon.  
 
Council voted 5-1 in favour of committing $400,000 to the bid in addition to up to $2.5 million for upgrades to the Keystone Centre to get it at a level where it will be capable of hosting what is likely North America's largest hockey tournament. In favour were Murray Blight, Errol Black, Don Jessiman, Jim McCrae and Vince Barletta. The sole vote against was from Margo Campbell. Not present were Doug Patterson and Garth Rice (updated: and Ken Fitzpatrick and Jeff Harwood).  
 
The money is on the condition that the City is awarded the tournament in an October WHL Board of Govenors meeting. WHL Commissioner Ron Robison was in Brandon for the meeting and wasn't in a position to go as far as saying that we would be the winning bid, but said that with the facility upgrades we would have a very strong chance of being successful. His exact words were that we would be a "leading candidate" and that "This (Manitoba) is where the event should be." No doubt there will be some other quality bids, from Alberta teams in particular.  
 
For anyone unfamiliar with the Memorial Cup, it is played with four teams over ten days in the month of May. It includes the league champion from the Ontario League, Quebec League and WHL as well as the host team. The Wheat Kings will have a very strong team in 2010 and would be in a position to win it all.  
 
I've thrown a few pictures from the meeting up for anyone that's interested. CKX had a crew on hand and I'm sure will have coverage on the 6 PM news.. as well as likely posting the video on here tomorrow.