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Time could stand still at the Memorial Cup.

The four-team, nine-day tournament will kick off Friday evening in Halifax, under the watchful but atrophied eye of the Scotiabank Centre score clock.

“Our expectation is that we should be able to get through the Memorial Cup without failure,” Jacques Dube, the chief administrative officer of Halifax Regional Municipality, told regional council Tuesday during a discussion surrounding a new $1,250,602 replacement clock and video production control room.

“I can’t predict that there will be a failure,” Dube said, adding that he could neither predict that there would not be a score clock failure.

Halifax Mooseheads fans celebrate a home team goal during a game on April 2, 2019. The Mooseheads are getting ready to host the Memorial Cup in their home arena starting on May 17. - Ryan Taplin

When Coun. Matt Whitman (Hammonds Plains-St. Margarets) balked at the price of a replacement clock, municipal lawyer John Traves said the alternative is simply not to get a new clock.

“The clock is past its usable life,” he said of the existing scoreboard.

“There are always risks,” Dube said of the aging clock’s effectiveness for the Memorial Cup. But he said all the available extra parts have been gathered and the games will go on.

The Scotiabank Centre is in the midst of a multi-year, multi-phase recapitalization program. Upgrades already completed include a new ice slab, new seats, new roof, new basketball floor, concourse and mezzanine washrooms and LED lighting.

The current video production system is an outdated standard definition technology that will be replaced by a high-definition system with new electrical infrastructure that meets modern broadcast standards.

The replacement tender was posted to the Nova Scotia procurement website on March 21 and closed on April 11. Three proposals were received but bids by United Systems Integration and Applied Electronics were disqualified because they did not meet the submission requirements.

The Matrix Video Communications Corp. bid was accepted.

“Nobody likes to close out a competition and end up with only one competitor,” Traves said, but that is the way the competition played out.

Work on the replacement clock is planned to begin shortly and to be completed by September.