Calgary Canucks


The Calgary Canucks are a junior A ice hockey team in the Alberta Junior Hockey League. They play in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with home games at the Max Bell Centre. They have won the AJHL championship nine times and one national championship.

History

Founded in 1971, the Calgary Canucks are the second-oldest franchise still operating in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, preceded only by the Spruce Grove Saints. The Canucks franchise has the longest tenure of any in the AJHL in one city.
The Canucks organization was formed of a group led by Doug Eastcott in order to create a junior team so that local players did not have to live away from where they attended school. As the team considered itself a Calgary-based development system, it set an internal limit of three "imports" per season. The import cap was eventually dropped as the AJHL has added more teams in the Calgary region such as the Calgary Royals and Okotoks Oilers, causing the team to recruit from a larger region.
The Canucks qualified for the playoffs 34 consecutive seasons, a streak finally broken in 2006–07, The team has 11 regular season titles, nine AJHL championships, two Doyle Cup titles, and one Centennial Cup National Junior A Championship. The team has developed multiple players that have reached the National Hockey League, including Dany Heatley and two-time Stanley Cup winner Mike Vernon. Many more have earned scholarships to American and Canadian universities.

Season-by-season record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T/OTL = Ties/Overtime losses, SOL = Shootout losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against

Junior A National Championship

The National Junior A Championship, known as the Centennial Cup and formerly as Royal Bank Cup or RBC Cup, is the postseason tournament for the Canadian national championship for Junior A hockey teams that are members of the Canadian Junior Hockey League since 1971. Since 1986, the tournament has consisted of the regional Junior A champions and a previously selected host team. Since 1990, the national championship has used a five-team tournament format when the regional qualifiers were designated as the ANAVET Cup, Doyle Cup, Dudley Hewitt Cup, and Fred Page Cup. From 2013 to 2017, the qualifiers were the Dudley Hewitt Cup, Fred Page Cup, and the Western Canada Cup champions and runners-up.
The tournament begins with round-robin play between the five teams followed by the top four teams playing a semifinal game, with the top seed facing the fourth seed and the second facing the third. The winners of the semifinals then face each other in final game for the national championship. In some years, the losers of the semifinal games face each other for a third place game.
YearRound-robinRecordStandingSemifinalChampionship game
1995W, 1–0 vs. Le National de Joliette
W, 6–0 vs. Thunder Bay Flyers
W, 5–4 vs. Gloucester Rangers
L, 3–6 vs. Winnipeg South Blues
3–1
1st of 5W, 5–3 vs. Thunder Bay FlyersW, 5–4 vs. Gloucester Rangers
Centennial Cup National Junior A Champions

NHL alumni

The following former Canucks have gone on to play in the National Hockey League :