Canada defeated Sweden 5-1 on New Year's Eve in Halifax (Acadia News Photo)
Lots of praise after Team Canada’s Gold medal win at the 2023 IIHF World Juniors Championship.
Moncton and Halifax who planned and hosted the event are also receiving applause.
It was just nine months ago, that the two cities made the decision to bid on the event that was originally supposed to be held in Russia.
The CEO of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Moncton John Wishart says this tournament will mean big things for the two Maritime communities.
“The City of Moncton and the province of New Brunswick have already said they’re very happy with the impact of the event and the publicity we’ve gained, “It wasn’t necessarily free publicity but the publicity that we gained over the last couple of weeks and all of those aerial drone shots of downtown Moncton and Avenir Centre. There were media from around the world here and they universally praised the city and the hosting of the event. That trickles back to potential investors and businesses who are edging between a couple of locations for the next big thing, and they might take a deeper look and put their money in Moncton after seeing us pull off the World Juniors,” Wishart says.
As to what’s next for Moncton, Wishart thinks there’s an appetite now for the next big thing, but they need to take some time to figure out what that is.
“I believe we’re going to sit back for the next couple of months and do more of an analysis, looking at the costs and benefits of hosting the tournament. What could we do better and what should be next on our radar?” Wishart adds.
He also feels the positive response from this tournament so far, shows other organizations that we can host an event of this size and that will probably bode well for future success.
Big applause was also given to the over 150 volunteers who worked long hours on the event, “This event would not have happened without them,” Wishart complimented.
