World Juniors A Boon For Downtown Moncton Businesses
MONCTON – The 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships proved a boon for downtown Moncton’s service sector.
Businesses serving food in the vicinity of the Avenir Center confirmed an uptick of foot traffic during World Junior games, which ran from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in Moncton.
Carrabba’s Italian Grill, across Canada Street from the Avenir Centre, saw such a dramatic number of customers coming through the door that it had its busiest day since opening in 2020.
On Saturday, the Slovakia-versus-Switzerland and Finland-versus-U.S. matches that took place at the Avenir Centre brought 600 customers to Carrabba’s.
“It’s been a lot of fun, being across from the Avenir Centre,” said Carrabba’s General Manager Marina Hills.
“We have been on the world stage and we’ve had people from all over the world come into the restaurant, every day during the World Juniors. We’ve had the opportunity to serve a lot of different people.”
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Hills said Carrabba’s had been planning for six months for the international hockey competition.
This planning culminated in an outdoor bar with a fireplace and lights, along with broadcasts at multiple points in the restaurant of World Juniors Games.
“We always had the games going so people could come over after the game [at the Avenir Centre] to watch one in Halifax or they could come before the game to watch the game in Halifax,” she said.
Across Main Street from Carrabba’s, at T Bone’s Restaurant and Lounge, Jessica Elmore said the international hockey excitement – and hunger and thirst that followed each game hosted at the Avenir Centre – spilled over to T Bones, reliably, every day a game was played in Moncton.
Elmore, the evening shift manager with T Bone’s, said that each day of the tournament, at 5:00 p.m., the restaurant was at capacity with all 16 tables and seats at the bar filled.
“Then, after the games, they’d come in and have their drinks,” she said.
Elmore estimates the games brought at least 100 customers a day to the restaurant, located in the Crowne Plaza Moncton Downtown.
She said the hype was so strong that it made people break diets at a time of year they usually start cutting back.
“People start to go on their ‘new year, new me’ diet plan and all that, and I usually find business drops after Christmas and just before, so it was actually really decent,” said Elmore. “The business and my sales were really good, and tips were really good.”
While the World Juniors brought people from around the world to Moncton’s restaurants, Elmore said that Americans made up the majority of her World Juniors customers.
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“It was more Americans than anyone else. I’m American as well, so I served a lot of Americans. They were just looking for somewhere close, that would take them,” she said.
“Most places were slammed so they were just happy to find we were able to welcome them and take them in.”
Business Boon
Chamber of Commerce For Greater Moncton CEO John Wishart, in an interview with Huddle partner 91.9 The Bend, said hospitality businesses in downtown Moncton have reported a great couple of weeks. Many fans were eating, staying, and sightseeing locally and hotels reported 90- to 100-percent occupancy; restaurants and bars were near capacity throughout the tournament.
Overall, Wishart says it was a good end to 2022 and a good start to 2023.
“All in all, it was a ten out of ten,” said Wishart.
He noted that a formal economic impact report from the International Ice Hockey Federation will come soon.
“This was a very worthwhile and much-needed shot in the arm for the city’s economy, especially the downtown businesses,” he added. He noted that it came at a great time, as the city recovers from Covid-19’s economic impacts and reckons with the impacts of inflation and local workforce issues.
Wishart stressed that the event proves that Moncton can host an event the size of the World Juniors – and said the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Moncton will be analyzing how the city can host more events of such a scale, in the future.
“I don’t think you can put a price tag on the publicity that we gained over the last couple of weeks.”
Sam Macdonald is a Huddle reporter in Moncton. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].