Nipissing Lakers hope to Bring it!

Lakers Head Coach, Mike McParland speaks to the media during a Nipissing University press conference at Memorial Gardens, announcing their intentions to bid for the 2013 and 2014 University Cup. Several community members, such as Mayor Vic Fedeli and President of the Chamber of Commerce, Sean Lawlor were on hand to support the bid with the slogan of "Bring it!". Photo by Paul Soucy.

Could the CIS National Men’s Hockey Championships come to the Gateway City? Nipissing University is hoping it does, as they announced on Wednesday morning at a Memorial Gardens press conference they are bidding for the 2013 and 2014 University Cup.

Al McDonald, president of Hockey Operations for the team said despite being ranked third nationally for attendance, Nipissing is still in tough to land the tournament.

“Obviously we’re a smaller city, we’re the smallest university with a varsity hockey team, and the fact that we’ve never hosted a national championship at a university level,” McDonald said. “Those are all kind of working against us.”

He went on to say that the bid committee will work their strong attendance numbers into the bid. The committee members are no stranger to promoting hockey in North Bay, as some of them were on the committee which helped name the city “Hockeyville”.

“That will hopefully sway the (tournament) committee to take a chance on North Bay and Nipissing University,” McDonald said.

Lakers Head Coach, Mike McParland said he has already been ‘unofficially’ mentioning to possible recruits the fact that Nipissing could apply for the University Cup, and not that it is announced he will mentioning it more often.

“I’m happy with this announcement, it frees me up a little bit,” McParland said. “Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that North Bay does win this bid.”

McParland went on to mention this will definitely help the recruiting process over the next couple over seasons.

“We have to have some incentive, or something extra to offer,” McParland said. “If we can add this… that would definitely enhance our chances to land some of the top players.”

Nipissing formally launched their bid today; they’re asking people to join their Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lakers-bid-for-CIS/118964671465761). The University Cup host city is expected to be announced sometime in early June.