“When you look back at it now, it makes it a lot sweeter that we had to fight for everything to go out, and we had to play five rounds, and we had to win and lose games, and by the end of it, we truly gave it our all." -- Canucks forward Arshdeep Bains
On June 23, 2025, the Abbotsford Canucks won their first Calder Cup in franchise history. After a long four months of off-season, the team will raise their championship banner to the rafters of the Abbotsford Centre, in front of the fans who helped propel them to that iconic victory.
“I can’t say enough about our crowd. They continue to amaze us. Can’t talk about enough about how much energy the guys feed off of from this building. It’s electrifying. It’s a great atmosphere for hockey, and we’re privileged to play in front of fans like this,” AHL Canucks head coach Manny Malhotra had said about the crowd at the Abbotsford Centre during the team’s championship run.
From Game 1 of the regular season to that fateful Calder Cup Final Game 6 in Charlotte, the fans were a big part of Abbotsford’s Calder Cup win. The other part? The team’s no-quit, even-keel mentality.
“Even after wins, the next day, it’s like nothing happened,” Abbotsford captain Chase Wouters had explained after the team’s final home game of the 2025 Calder Cup Playoffs. “That’s kind of been our mindset all year. It’s a new day tomorrow, the sun’s gonna come up and we’re gonna look at some things and reset and get ready to go.”
Abbotsford’s playoff run began at the end of April, with the team facing the Tucson Roadrunners in a three-game first-round series that went right down to the wire. The AHL Canucks were only pushed to the bring twice during their playoff run, making this first-round series invaluable in preserving their bounce-back mentality.
“Obviously the emotions of playoffs can get very high and very low, and it started right from our first series with Tucson, where you get Game 1, lose Game 2, and all of a sudden you’re in a do-or-die game in the first series,” Malhotra said. “That, in itself, built up again, that belief that we talked about playing in those situations where it’s a do or die situation.”
From there, the AHL Canucks faced yet another obstacle — the second round. Prior to 2025, Abbotsford had yet to advance past the second round during the Calder Cup Playoffs. To do so this time around, they took down the Coachella Valley Firebirds in four games. This was the AHL Canucks’ first series featuring road games, as their first-round matchup was all played in Abbotsford. However, being away from the Abbotsford Centre didn’t seem to be much of a problem, as they stole the first game from Coachella Valley and nearly won the second after coming back from a 3–0 deficit.
The Pacific Division Finals greeted Abbotsford next, as the team took on Colorado for a chance at advancing to the Western Conference Finals. The Eagles were the first seed team in the West, providing the AHL Canucks with stiff competition. While Colorado took Abbotsford to sudden-death in Game 5, it was the AHL Canucks who won the series with their championship hopes on the line.
“You think about that Game 3 against Tucson, Game 5 against Colorado. Those are games that you dream about,” Wouters said. “Every day, you think about those moments.”
“I’m Just So Happy Right Now”: The Abbotsford Canucks React To Their 2025 Calder Cup Win
Words can be hard to come by for players on a team that just won their first championship in franchise history. However, that wasn’t the case for the <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/vancouver-canucks/game-day/breaking-abbotsford-canucks-win-2025-calder-cup">2025 Calder Cup champion</a> Abbotsford Canucks, who took down the Charlotte Checkers in six games to win the title after five gruelling playoff rounds. In postgame interviews with <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/vancouver-canucks">Vancouver Canucks</a> Insider member Lindsey Horsting, four members of the team spoke on the feeling of being Calder Cup champions.
With three playoff series already in the books, Abbotsford’s sights turned to the Western Conference Finals. Their opponent, the Texas Stars, had three of the AHL’s leading scorers in the playoffs — but that meant nothing to the no-quit Canucks, who took the Stars down in six games to qualify for the Calder Cup Finals on home ice. Even so, Abbotsford emphasized the fact that, while making the Finals was a franchise milestone, the team still had work to do.
“When you win the conference, it’s pretty special,” Max Sasson had said after clinching the Western Conference. “We’re definitely pretty happy and excited in the locker room, and definitely gonna celebrate it tonight. It just means the world, and we’ll be ready for Charlotte, but we’ve got to enjoy these moments. They don’t come every year.”
The Charlotte Checkers may have been Abbotsford’s most difficult opponent yet. With the allure of the Calder Cup in sight as well as the unfamiliar ice conditions at Bojangles Coliseum, the AHL Canucks put their heads down and went to work. The AHL Canucks and Checkers traded overtime wins to start the series, before the games moved to none other than Abbotsford. With the series tied, Abbotsford rode the energy of their fans to two straight victories at home.
While they were unable to get the job done at home, their Game 5 home loss didn’t dissuade Abbotsford from playing their way in Charlotte during Game 6. In trademark AHL Canucks fashion, Abbotsford came out swinging, pushing themselves to the maximum to keep the puck swirling around Charlotte’s goal. The players described their effort in Game 6 and throughout the playoffs best — resilient.
“It almost seemed more fitting for us to do it on the road and just go out and grind another game out again,” Malhotra expressed. “We found ourselves in a situation where we were two goals down, we had seen that a number of times throughout the playoffs — not a situation that we wanted to be in — but the fact that we were able to claw back, obviously special teams were a huge part of last night, getting us one on the power play, and then the [penalty] kill just shutting things down. It was just a very ‘us’ game, and a very fitting end to our season tough series.”
“When you look back at it now, it makes it a lot sweeter that we had to fight for everything to go out, and we had to play five rounds, and we had to win and lose games, and by the end of it, we truly gave it our all,” Canucks forward Arshdeep Bains said. “It’s an unbelievable feeling that we get to go home winners.”
Reliving The Abbotsford Canucks’ 2025 Calder Cup Win
Tonight is a big night for the city of Abbotsford, as the <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/vancouver-canucks/game-day/breaking-abbotsford-canucks-win-2025-calder-cup">2025 Calder Cup-winning</a> <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/vancouver-canucks/latest-news/i-m-just-so-happy-right-now-the-abbotsford-canucks-react-to-their-2025-calder-cup-win">Abbotsford Canucks</a> will be heading back to their home arena to celebrate the championship with their fans. The Abbotsford Centre is sure to be pumped up for the occasion, as the team has had to open up <a href="https://x.com/abbycanucks/status/1937979321840476386">extra sections</a> to accommodate for the amount of tickets being sold. Before the team’s big celebration, let’s take a look back at the remarkable journey that brought them to the Calder Cup.
Abbotsford’s Calder Cup win was one made up of excellent individual and team performances. Calder Cup Playoff MVP, Artūrs Šilovs, constantly stole the show with dazzling saves and stretches of shutouts. The energizing line of Bains, Sasson, and Linus Karlsson was a key component in the team’s victories, with this very line finding lots of success at the NHL level this year.
As a whole, it was Abbotsford’s team-mentality that helped carry them to the Calder Cup. While their individual performances were impressive, at the end of the day, everyone credits the players’ commitment to their systems. Tasks such as being the first on the puck into the offensive zone, making the extra block to stop a shot from potentially going in, or even laying the body when needed to find the puck along the board — these were the little things that the players did right.
“There’s so many guys who grew up together. It’s a special group, special chemistry, the same guys fighting for every inch of the ice, like blocking shots, like doing everything in their power to win these games,” Šilovs had said at the time. “It doesn’t matter if we win or lose, we’ve managed to bounce back every single game and I think that’s what it takes to win.”
While the team may look quite different, the memories will forever remain within the rafters of the Abbotsford Centre when the team lifts their championship banner tonight.
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