The Calgary Buffaloes celebrate after winning the 2008 championship. The Midget AAA World Invitational Tournament (branded as the

Circle K Circle K Stores, Inc. is a Canadian chain of convenience stores headquartered in Laval, Quebec, Canada. It is owned by the multinational company Couche-Tard. Founded in 1951 in El Paso, Texas, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in ...

Classic for sponsorship reasons) is an international

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

tournament held annually for U18 ( formerly named midget-level) players in Calgary,

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. First held in 1978, as the CP Challenge Cup, the tournament features 25 male teams from across Canada, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. The Circle K Classic Tournament begins on December 26 ( Boxing Day) and concludes with the championship game on January 1 ( New Year's Day). The round robin games are seen by around 3,000 fans, per game, at three local arenas in Calgary. They are the Max Bell Centre, the Father David Bauer Olympic Arena, and the Flames Community Arena. The main championship game is held at the Scotiabank Saddledome, where it is seen as many as 10,000 spectators. Overall, the tournament draws in as many as 100,000 spectators over the seven days.Official website's History of Circle K Classic Page
/ref> Many of the male players here would have played at their highest point of their ice hockey careers. However, some of them went on to play in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

. These players are recognized by the Circle K Classic tournament officials by having their photos added to the Wall of Fame at the Max Bell Centre. On January 2, 1989,

Petr Nedvěd Petr Nedvěd (born December 9, 1971) is a Czech-born Canadian former professional ice hockey player who spent 15 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) between 1990 and 2007. Early career Nedvěd was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia to Jaro ...

, who was playing for the champion Chemical Works

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team, left his hotel room in the middle of the night and walked into a Calgary

RCMP The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal and national police service of Canada. As poli ...

police station. Once there, he declared his intention to defect from his native country of

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Tournament format

The current Circle K Classic tournament starts with five pools of five male teams each. Each pool is "hosted" by a Calgary area team: the Calgary Flames (AAA), the Calgary Royals, the Calgary Northstars and the Calgary Buffaloes, as well as the Airdrie CFR Bisons. They all play their ice hockey games in the

Alberta Midget Hockey League The Alberta Elite Hockey League or AEHL (formerly the Alberta Midget Hockey League) is the provincial U18 "AAA" ice hockey league for Alberta, Canada. The league consists of 17 teams split into the North and South Divisions. League champions go ...

. All male teams face each other in their respective round robin pools (from December 26 to 30). The top five first place and the next three highest-point second place teams, in any pool, advance to the single elimination playoff round on December 31 ( New Year's Eve). From there, the remaining two teams left would play in the championship game on January 1, in order to determine the winner of the tournament. In the former female division, there were three pools of five teams each. The main female hosts here were the Calgary Fire and the Rocky Mountain Raiders from

Okotoks Okotoks (, originally ) is a town in the Calgary Region of Alberta, Canada. It is on the Sheep River, approximately south of Calgary. Okotoks has emerged as a bedroom community of Calgary. According to the 2016 Census, the town has a population ...

. The top five pool winners each and one wild-card spot advanced to the semifinals. From there, the two remaining female teams went on to play at the championship game, in order to determine the winner of the tournament.

Champions

* Note: ''Numbers in brackets indicated teams that have won more than one Midget AAA World Invitational Tournament championship in their history.''

Male division

Female division

The female division was introduced in 2004. Due to an alleged declining interest in women's ice hockey, the 2017 tournament was the final one that took place.

Alumni in the NHL

The following is a partial list of Circle K Classic tourney alumni who have gone on to play in the NHL.Circle K Classic MIDGET AAA WORLD INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT WALL OF FAME Page
/ref>

References

External links

Midget AAA World Invitational Tournament Official website
{{Midget AAA Hockey in Canada Ice hockey in Calgary Ice hockey tournaments in Canada Youth ice hockey in Canada