The Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team is bringing their opportunity for a record-breaking nine Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) national championship titles home to Ottawa.
Mayor Jim Watson, one of two co-chairs of the 2013 CIS Final 8, said he expects next year’s tournament to bring in $3-4 million in economic activity.
“That’s from people visiting, the teams visiting, hotel rooms, taxis, restaurants, people shopping, and buying merchandise,” Watson said. “So, it has a very positive impact on the local economy, and because there are going to be eight teams — seven from out of town — all of their fans and friends are going to be coming into Ottawa.”
The 2013 CIS Final 8 organizing committee was annonced March 16, with two Carleton alumni named as co-chairs: Watson, and the executive director of the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association, Dick Brown.
Carleton has hosted the CIS Final 8 only three times in the program’s history. The tournament was held at Scotiabank Place for three consecutive years in 2008, 2009, and 2010. In those three years, the Ravens experienced their only two national championship losses in the past decade.
Before Ottawa hosted the three tournaments, Halifax was home to the event 20 consecutive times, starting with the 1987-1988 tournament.
Winning the bid for the CIS national tournament for the next two years fits well with the city’s philosophy, Watson said. The Quebec native said he’s proud of the success of his “bid more, win more, host more” plan that brought the tournament here in the first place.
“We had the NHL all-star game here this year, we have the Junos this week, the CIS Final 8 the next two years, we’ve got the women’s hockey championship next year, and we’re bidding on the FIFA Women’s World Cup for 2015,” Watson said. “All of these events are not only good for spectators and sports enthusiasts, but also for the economy and [they] create a lot of jobs.”
Jennifer Brenning, Carleton’s director of recreation and athletics, was involved in organizing the tournament for the three times Carleton hosted the Final 8 at Scotiabank Place and is a member of this year’s committee as well.
Next year’s tournament presents an opportunity for her and the committee to take it to the next level.
“Our first time organizing the event, we were looking at operationally doing a sound job from an organizational and logistics perspective,” she said. “We’ve learned a lot from the last three years that we’ve hosted, and now we want to really increase the profile and really engage the broader community. [Watson and Brown] will help us do that, as well as Ottawa Tourism. We have a number of members on that committee that can really help elevate the event in our community and really engage the whole capital region.”
The last time Ottawa hosted the Final 8 tournament in 2010, Scotiabank Place saw about 43-45,000 seats filled over the three-day tournament, compared to the roughly 23,000 fans who attended games this year at the Halifax Metro Centre. Ottawa is a bigger city, however, and the committee is always looking to draw more fans for the event.
“We had the Final 8 here a couple of years ago, the [Capital] Hoops Classic always attracts a good crowd, and we’ve got people like Cyril Leeder, who’s the president of the Senators on our organizing committee,” Watson said. “We want to be able to use some of his marketing expertise on how he fills the stadium so we can have as boisterous and exciting a crowd as we have at a Sens game.”
Besides filling seats and boosting the economy, there’s still basketball to be played and Carleton will no doubt be looking to improve its home record at the CIS Final 8.
“It’s a pretty remarkable achievement to win eight of the last 10 championships,” Watson said. “I think it makes it even more special, because obviously if they can win next year they go into the history books of interuniversity sport. To have it take place on home turf is even more special.”
As for the future of the Ravens’ winning ways, the proud Carleton graduate said they need to “just keep winning.”
“At some point, somewhere down the line, there will be another team that will try to break Carleton’s record, so we want to make it as difficult as possible for them to do that by continuing to win.”
