Playing Final 8 in Halifax simply makes sense

I was interested to hear the CIS Final 8 men’s basketball championship will return to Halifax for 2011 and 2012.

That doesn’t really surprise me. I’ve said many times - and I believe the stats back me up - there’s really only one place in the country to play the Final 8.

Halifax.

What I did find surprising was Atlantic University Sport submitted the only bid to host the event after the current three-year contract with Carleton University in Ottawa expires in 2010 and, thus, earned the right to host the tournaments by default.

Even AUS executive director Phil Currie expressed surprise UBC, which presented a strong bid last time, or another Ontario school hadn’t submitted a bid.

At the time it was awarded, there was a lot of discussion over Carleton securing the Final 8 for 2008 to 2010, some of it suggesting Halifax would likely never see the tournament again. I didn’t agree with that then, and I still don’t.

I don’t know how well the Final 8 did last year in Ottawa, but the general understanding, as communicated by Carleton at CIS annual meetings, is it didn’t break even. There’s no question Carleton’s bid was based on the likelihood of the host Ravens, the CIS champions from 2004 to 2007, at least playing in the championship final each year. That didn’t happen last season, and it shouldn’t be a surprise attendance for the final between Acadia (which eliminated Carleton in double overtime) and Brock was likely less.

That’s what made the Final 8 and Halifax such a perfect fit. In the 20 years between 1988 (when AUS took over the event) and 2007, there weren’t too many times a team from this conference even played in the final. St. F.X. won three CIS championships and Saint Mary’s one. Acadia, St. F.X. and SMU each played in the final once - and lost. The rest of the time, it was Victoria, Brandon, McMaster or, more recently, Carleton; playing another talented team from somewhere else in the country. No matter who was playing, the Metro Centre would be at least half-full. You could set your clock by it.

I’m sure the difference between last year’s Final 8 in Ottawa and the previous 10 years or more in Halifax wasn’t the attendance for the quarterfinals or semifinals. It was the attendance for the final, without the “local team” on the floor.

Atlantic University Sport consistently raised the bar in terms of the Final 8 over the years, until it became one of the biggest university sporting events in the country. In a way, they became victims of their – and the event’s – success, as CIS imposed ever-increasing financial guarantees on tournament hosts.

Currie confirms, while there were some years, especially in the short-lived “Final 10” format, when the event didn’t perform to pre-tournament expectations; the Final 8 never lost money in Halifax.

It’s a telling sign of how popular a venue Halifax is there was little - if any - growling about the distance teams had to travel: not from UBC, Alberta, Calgary, Brandon or other teams a good distance away.

Currie feels the Final 8 leaving Halifax for a few years wasn’t necessarily a bad thing: it has allowed AUS to reflect on its past success hosting the event, and how it can be improved and made even more streamlined and cost-efficient. “It’s not something we’re depending on anymore,” he says. “From now on, it’ll be just a part of what we do, which should allow us to take a little different approach.” For now, “we’ll continue to do the best we can, like we always have, and see what happens.”

Once it’s official, likely next month, Halifax will have the Final 8 back for 2011 and 2012. Currie isn’t counting out the possibility of “another long run” for the event in Halifax. I agree with him because, along with everything else, it simply makes sense.