The Halifax Mooseheads have been selected over the Moncton Wildcats to host the 2019 Memorial Cup.
The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League made the announcement Thursday afternoon in Montreal during the QMJHL draft lottery.
“Congratulations to the Halifax Mooseheads. They will be great hosts for the event and will make the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League proud. We wish them and their fans the best,” said Robert K. Irving, President of the Moncton Wildcats.
“We would like to thank everyone from the community involved in helping the Moncton Wildcats with our Memorial Cup bid. We are proud of the bid we submitted to the League. There were many people involved in putting this bid together and we sincerely appreciate their support.”
“The vision of the Moncton Wildcats is still to win the Memorial Cup. While we’re not hosting next year’s event, we’ll continue to build towards winning this national championship,” said Mr. Irving.
Wildcats communications manager Courtney Huestis says the team wouldn’t change a thing about their bid.
“We’re really proud of the bid that we were able to submit. A big thank you to everyone involved in the community. We had so much fan support, local business support, and officials. So we couldn’t have done it without everyone,” she says.
Huestis adds it’s too soon to think about another future bid right now with the Wildcats focusing on the next round of the playoffs against the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada.
Moncton mayor Dawn Arnold noted while it’s definitely not the outcome wanted, she added the Wildcats submitted a very high quality bid and the entire community should be extremely proud of their efforts.
