Bidding process for Memorial Cup to change

The MasterCard Memorial Cup will have a different bid process for the 2018 tournament.

CHL President David Branch confirmed to media on Tuesday in Red Deer, the 2016 tournament host, that the Canadian Hockey League will use a national bidding format for the event, which will be the 100th in tournament history.

“We’re working on finalizing details on how the various teams will be scrutinized and filtered through to the top six or thereabouts for consideration,” Branch said.

“We meet in late-June as a CHL board. In fact, Ron Robison, Gilles Courteau and myself have been spending a lot of time here working through some reports with some of our staff on how we should best consider putting the pieces together for it, That’s a big and exciting opportunity for sure.”

The tournament will then go back to its natural rotation for 2019 which would be the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s turn to host.

The Windsor Spitfires will host the 2017 tournament.