Memorial Cup: The skinny on the four rival cities, including London

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With bragging rights on the line, here’s the 101 on the four cities chasing junior hockey’s Memorial Cup in a tournament starting May 24.

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MOOSE JAW

PROFILE: A farming service centre along the Trans-Canada highway on the Saskatchewan prairie, Moose Jaw is the smallest city in the Memorial Cup tournament but looms large in the sparsely populated province. At 35,000, it ranks as Saskatchewan’s fourth-largest city.

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CLAIM TO FAME: Hands-down, Moose Jaw has the most intriguing claim to fame of any of the tournament cities. An urban legend has it that the city was a hideout for Prohibition-era gangster Al Capone, who’d supposedly steal away there when things got too hot for him in Chicago, nearly 1,900 kilometres away.

CELEBRITIES: The late Art Linkletter, a longtime American radio and television personality, hailed from Moose Jaw. More recently, Moose Jaw made headlines after rocker Burton Cummings, of The Guess Who fame, moved there from Los Angeles. He said he appreciated Moose Jaw’s quieter lifestyle and compared it to Mayberry, the fictional North Carolina town in the long-running TV series The Andy Griffith Show.

NICKNAME: When you’re called Moose Jaw, you don’t really need other handles but they do exist: The Jaw, Band City and Little Chicago are among them.

TEAM: The Moose Jaw Warriors, the Western Hockey League champions.

SAGINAW

PROFILE: Located near the base of “the thumb” on Michigan’s lower peninsula, Memorial Cup host Saginaw was a booming lumber town in the 1800s that became a manufacturing city, hooked to the auto industry, with boom and bust cycles. Roughly a three-hour drive from London, it has a population of about 45,000.

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CLAIM TO FAME: It’s a toss-up between wood and music. The area reportedly churned out enough lumber in its heyday to encircle the globe with two-by-four planks. The hit 1964 country song Saginaw, Michigan, sung by Lefty Frizzell, reached No. 1 on the U.S. country charts and has been covered by more than a dozen country stars. Paul Simon’s 1966 song America also gives the city a nod. “It took me four days to hitch-hike from Saginaw,” one lyric goes.

CELEBRITIES: Retired tennis legend Serena Williams (but not her sister, Venus, also formidable with a tennis racket), singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder and NBA player Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors and former NBA player Kenyon Martin, all hail from Saginaw.

NICKNAMES: Once known as the Lumber Capital of the World. Another handle, somewhat controversial, is Sagnasty – used both as a term of endearment and a less flattering reference. Some years ago, an area graffiti artist made headlines by trying to change that channel, using slogans like ‘Saginawesome’ and ‘Saginaw Love.’

TEAM: The Saginaw Spirit, of the Ontario Hockey League.

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DRUMMONDVILLE

PROFILE: A city of 80,000, east of Montreal, it was founded to provide a home for British soldiers in the War of 1812 and to guard against attacks by the Americans. It was named after Gordon Drummond, then the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada.

CLAIM TO FAME: It was at his drive-in restaurant in Drummondville that Jean-Paul Roy claimed to have invented poutine in 1964. Whether poutine was born there, or at another eatery in Warwick, Que., in 1957, is a matter of debate. Either way, Drummondville makes the most of the yummy mixture of cheese curds, fries and gravy, with an annual poutine festival.

CELEBRITIES: Drummondville was the birthplace of former NHL greats Yvan Cournoyer and Marcel Dionne, whose name graces the arena where the Drummondville junior hockey team plays. Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet also hails from Drummondville.

NICKNAME: It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but Drummondville is known as Quebec’s capital of expression and traditions.

TEAM: The Drummondville Voltigeurs, Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League champions.

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LONDON

PROFILE: Southwestern Ontario’s largest city, with a population of more than 540,000 counting the wider region, London is roughly halfway between Detroit and Toronto and dwarfs all the other Memorial Cup cities in size.

CLAIM TO FAME: There are many, but it’s the birthplace of two things known around the world – insulin, a life-saver for diabetics, the idea for which was conceived in London by Frederick Banting, and Labatt beer, first brewed in London where the company began.

CELEBRITIES: Pop music icon Justin Bieber was born in London, as were two of Hollywood’s biggest names – actors Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. With hockey baked into its DNA, London also counts Nick Suzuki of the Montreal Canadiens and former NHL greats Eric Lindros and Jeff Carter as native sons.

NICKNAME: The Forest City

TEAM: The London Knights, the Ontario Hockey League champions.

nbrennan@postmedia.com

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