The 1997 Memorial Cup occurred May 10–18 at the Robert Guertin Centre in Hull, Quebec. It was the 79th annual Memorial Cup competition and determined the major junior ice hockey champion of the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). Participating teams were the host Hull Olympiques, who were also the champions of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, as well as the QMJHL runner-up Chicoutimi Saguenéens, and the winners of the Ontario Hockey League and Western Hockey League, which were the Oshawa Generals and the Lethbridge Hurricanes respectively. The round-robin portion of the tournament also featured one of the greatest games in Memorial Cup history, in which Lethbridge trailed Hull 6-1 to start the third period of their game and stormed back to win 7-6 in overtime. The Olympiques won their first Memorial Cup, over Lethbridge.

The Gatineau Olympiques are a Canadian junior ice hockey team based in Gatineau, Quebec, that plays in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). Starting with the 2021–22 season, the Olympiques play home games at Centre Slush Puppie, having previously played at the Robert Guertin Centre dating back to its beginnings in the Central Junior A Hockey League. The club, then known as the Hull Festivals, was granted membership in the QMJHL in 1973. The Olympiques have appeared in the Memorial Cup seven times, winning once in 1997. Over eighty former players and coaches have gone on to play or coach in the National Hockey League (NHL), including Martin Biron, Aleš Hemský, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Luc Robitaille, Jeremy Roenick, Michael Ryder, Maxime Talbot, José Théodore, Colin White, Claude Giroux, David Krejčí, Jack Adams-winning head coaches Alain Vigneault and Pat Burns, and 2011 Stanley Cup-winning coach Claude Julien.