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When you think about ice hockey, this is probably the sort of picture that comes to mind. Either something like this or some big arena filled with people cheering on their favorite team. I wrote yesterday about how the Florida Panthers came back after dropping three games in a row to clinch the Stanley Cup. That reminded me that there were more cups played for this year than just the Stanley Cup.

In fact, a pretty famous one was just a couple towns over in Saginaw, MI.

The Memorial Cup celebrated it's 104 year in 2024. It belongs to the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), and was donated back in 1919 to honor the Canadian soldiers who died fighting in World War I. Fast foward to 2010 when the Memorial Cup was rededicated to all fallen Canadian soldiers.

The Memorial Cup is now an international trophy and is won in a round robin fashion between the OHL, the WHL (Western Hockey League), and the QMJHL (Quebec Major Junior Hockey League). The champions of each league meet in the Spring to determine who will hoist the Memorial Cup.

2024 was the first year ever that the games have been held in Michigan. As I mentioned above, it was held in Saginaw, MI and it was kind of a big deal.

I never actually realized how big of a deal, but they were hyping this thing up for months before the event actually happened. Different parts of the city were gearing up for all the traffic this was going to bring to the town.

It was definitely a big deal, but I don't think it brought in the revenue that they had hoped. In fact, I saw some news stories talking about how different businesses were really disappointed by the traffic they were seeing.

The fact is, Saginaw isn't that desirable of a destination. I think everybody knows the reputation that Detroit has. If you move a little north on I-75 you come across Flint, MI and that has it's own reputation but honestly is a similar story to Detroit. A little further up I-75 is Saginaw and you once again see a similar tale as the others, just on smaller scale.

The fact is, the area on the East side of the Saginaw River in Saginaw is kind of dumpy. There are some areas where it definitely isn't safe to be at night. Unfortunately, the venue where the Memorial Cup games were played is on that side of the river.

The hope was that people would come across the river to the "old town" part of Saginaw, but honestly, that area is kind of dumpy too. It isn't until you get out into the township that you see the nicer parts of Saginaw.

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The photo above is the venue where the games were played. It used to be called the Saginaw Civic Center, but since then Dow has acquired the naming rights and it is called the Dow Event Center. On this occasion we visited to watch some Cirque De Sole ice thing. We have been there for concerts and Saginaw Spirit Hockey games, I just didn't have any photos of the hockey games.

The Spirit made it a long series, and in an exciting championship game they edged out London, Ontario 4 to 3 to win the Memorial Cup.

Tickets are usually pretty easy to come by for Saginaw Spirit games. My wife usually gets a bunch of them free each year to give to her students. I have a feeling they might be a little harder to come by after this victory.

It's hard to say when the Memorial Cup games might come back to Saginaw, but hopefully the revival they have been working towards for so long will finally be in full swing.

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced