Halifax hockey fans hyped about potentially hosting World Juniors

It's been almost 20 years since Halifax hosted the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship and hockey fans are hyped about the potential of doing it again.

Last week, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston announced Halifax would be placing a bid in tandem with Moncton to try and secure the World Junior tournament to be played December 26, 2022-January 5, 2023.

“We've done it before, and we are ready to do it again,” Houston said in a news release. “In 2003, we showed there is no better host for this significant event when we hosted the World Junior Championship, and Nova Scotians are ready to do it again.”

Fans headed to Saturday night's Mooseheads game at the Scotiabank Centre agreed.

Dave Bates has fond memories of the tournament in 2003, which was co-hosted with Sydney. “I'll be right in line. I actually saw a couple of games back then,” he said.

At that time, starting in net for Team Canada was an up-and-coming teenage goaltender named Marc-Andre Fleury. He made a great effort in the gold medal game, but it was the teenage Alexander Ovechkin and Team Russia who took home the gold.

For those who missed the opportunity to see the action that year, this bid presents a second chance at absorbing the electric atmosphere.

“I never got to a Canada game, but I was there in 2003,” said Carl Poddie

Halifax and Moncton will not be without competition. Saskatoon and Regina — who hosted the tournament in 2010 — are also submitting a joint bid, as are London and Kitchener-Waterloo.

“We definitely should have it because we're the best city,” Mooseheads fan Kevin Peters said.

Typically the hosts for World Junior tournaments are determined years in advance. The 2023 World Juniors were supposed to be played in the Russian city of Novosibirsk, but the IIHF removed Russia's hosting rights following the country's invasion of Ukraine.

The last time Halifax hosted an IIHF event was the Men's World Championship in 2008, alongside Quebec City. 

Halifax and Truro had been scheduled to host the IIHF Women's World Championship in 2020, but that plan fell through as the pandemic emerged. We were offered it again in 2021, but weeks before it was set to start, the province passed on the opportunity due to rising cases of COVID-19. It was then moved to Calgary.