A new five-year sponsorship agreement between the Saint John Sea Dogs and TD Bank Group means Harbour Station will be getting a new name.

The announcement was made Wednesday at the start of the Sea Dogs training camp, but the new name for the arena used by the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team will be revealed at a later time.

Sea Dogs president Trevor Georgie said the team's new partner has deep New Brunswick ties, citing the number of people employed in the province and noting former premier Frank McKenna is now the bank's deputy chair.

"They are also a partner that I think can help us collaborate and find new synergies with their sponsorship portfolios," said Georgie.

TD is heavily invested in music and a number of different entertainment properties and Georgie said that will benefit the team and the arena.

"I think you're going to see a very engaged, very proud, and very involved partner in TD Bank acting not just as naming rights partners of the building and partners of the Sea Dogs but just as ambassadors to Saint John and to our region."

McCain speaks at the announcement of a new sponsorship agreement with TD Bank Group. (Steven Webb/CBC)

The details of the lease weren't released to the public but the team had threatened to leave Harbour Station, which has annual deficits of roughly $600,000 to $800,000. The city agreed to pay the team $100,000 over five years to stay.

But Georgie said TD Bank is as committed as much at the team is to the new partnership agreement.
"It's a great day for Saint John."

In a release, McKenna said TD Bank was proud of its growing presence in New Brunswick

"This sponsorship represents an opportunity for TD to engage fans and the community in space where they can connect, participate, and cheer on the home team through signature events."
TD is the first naming rights sponsor in the building's 26-year history. Harbour Station opened in 1993.

Former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna says he will remember George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, as a great gentleman.

Bush died Friday at the age of 94.

McKenna, the deputy chair at TD Bank Group, remembers exchanging letters as Bush sent him information on how to get the roses at his Cap-Pelé home to grow better.

"We had this little pen-pal relationship going for about a year on how to grow better flowers."


After McKenna left politics, he hosted a networking event in Moncton in July 2002 and invited Bush to be the guest speaker.

Bush was the chairman of The Carlyle Group, an American multinational financial services corporation. McKenna was a board member.

"We played golf at Royal Oaks in advance. He loved the course so much he played it twice."

Considerate man

After the rounds of golf were done, everyone headed to McKenna's home with Bush and his security detail arriving about 10 minutes before everyone else.

"My son was the only one there and he spent about 10 minutes talking to my son in just the most considerate way. It was just a wonderful experience for my son."

McKenna said Bush was interested in where he lived because it was right on the ocean, as was Bush's summer home in Maine.

"He was wandering around and looking at our flowers and asked us if we needed help in getting our roses growing because the salt corrodes them."

McKenna said Bush sent him information about it for months afterwards. Barbara Bush began corresponding with McKenna's wife, Julie, about it as well.

"It was just wonderful. They were so thoughtful and sent me a lovely note of thank you."

Fished at Larry's Gulch

McKenna said while he had other encounters with Bush as well as his son, George W. Bush, the 43rd president, he didn't return to New Brunswick for another event with him.

But Bush did spend time with former premier Bernard Lord and former prime minister Brian Mulroney at Larry's Gulch, the government-owned fishing lodge on the Restigouche River, weeks after McKenna's event.


Mulroney will be one of four people to deliver a eulogy at Bush's funeral.

While saddened to hear of Bush's death, McKenna said George W. Bush had been letting him know about his father's health.

"He was supposed to be my guest in the summer but he demurred because he wanted to spend more time with his dad. He told me his dad was failing badly so we knew that was happening and it's sad.

"It's the loss of a truly extraordinary human being and one that we will miss in our region because he lived so close to us and knew us so well."

Former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna says the new free trade agreement with the U.S. and Mexico was a victory for Canada, despite all the disparaging comments U.S. President Donald Trump made leading up to it.

The former New Brunswick premier, who was ambassador to the United States in 2005 and 2006, said Trump alienated Canada for 14 months.

Despite that, Canada did well, McKenna said, and the deal to replace NAFTA is good for New Brunswick because it protects market access and a dispute resolution process.

"We retained the dispute resolution mechanism, which means that ultimately we end up winning on softwood lumber, as we have historically, and that dispute will get resolved."

He said the negotiations, along with Trump's personal attacks, created a sense of hostility and stress among Canadians.

Trump, who did not name Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland by name, told reporters he didn't like Canada's negotiator, Canada's negotiation practices, or its stance on dairy tariffs and claimed he rejected a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"We're used to tough relations on issues from time to time but not personal attacks," McKenna said.
He said the two countries have disagreed on issues in the past — including Canada's decision not to join the war with Iraq — but that never changed the way the two administrations did business.
"Our relationship with the United States, I think, remains to be fundamentally strong," he said. "We can't go anywhere. We're neighbours."

Since the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, was reached almost two weeks ago, much of the criticism in Canada has focused on the greater access it gives the U.S. to the Canadian dairy market.

But McKenna said the trade agreement is a victory for Canada because any concessions were small.
"We essentially have the same NAFTA intact and that good news for our commercial relationship," he said.

And although the relationship between Canada and the U.S. president is not good, the two countries are not at odds.

"Eventually, the relationship with the rest of America will get back to normal," he said. "With the president, I can't see Canadian warming up to him in the near future."

- With files from Information Morning Moncton and Kate Letterick