The Hamilton Canucks were a professional ice hockey team in the

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary Minor league#Ice hockey, developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 AHL se ...

(AHL). They played in

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

, at

Copps Coliseum FirstOntario Centre (originally Copps Coliseum) is a sports and entertainment arena at the corner of Bay Street North and York Boulevard in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1985, it has a capacity of up to 19,000. History Hamilton was lef ...

. They were the AHL affiliate of the

Vancouver Canucks The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference, and play their home games at Rogers Arena. Bruce B ...

of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL). The team was the top minor league affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks for two seasons (1992–1994) in the AHL, and was initially owned by former NHL player Pat Hickey,

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

legend

Bernie Faloney Bernie Faloney (June 15, 1932 – June 14, 1999) was a professional football player in the Canadian Football League (primarily with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats) and an outstanding American college football player at the University of Maryland. Born in ...

and Dieter Beer. Just as the first season concluded, the three sold their interest to a group that called themselves "Double Hitch Enterprises"; both Faloney and Beer left and Hickey stayed on as the president. The second season started off with the team deciding to dump the Hamilton Canucks jersey in favour of wearing exactly the same jersey as their parent team. They also introduced a caveman theme, and had a mascot dressed as a caveman who waved around a sponge club and chants. After the first home game, Pat Hickey left the franchise. A few days later the new owners bailed on the city as they did not like the lease at Copps and pulled the plug on "Double Hitch Enterprises". The AHL was angered by the ownership group pulling the plug after a single home game and thus had to run the franchise going forward or fold it. It took about 3 weeks of back and forth negotiations with the AHL and Vancouver. The final result was that hockey would stay for the season in Hamilton and the team given to Vancouver to operate. One of the suitors for the team at the time was

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

- where the franchise would eventually wind up in October 1994. In spite of all the off the ice drama, the team did dramatically better than the first season and actually made the playoffs. But a hot Cornwall goalie,

Garth Snow Garth E. Snow (born July 28, 1969) is an American former professional ice hockey goaltender and former general manager, president and alternate governor of the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League (NHL). Drafted by the Quebec Nordiqu ...

and sniper Rene Corbet made short work of the Canucks in four games. With no local interest, Vancouver moved their AHL franchise and it became the

Syracuse Crunch The Syracuse Crunch are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL). They play in Syracuse, New York, at the Upstate Medical University Arena. They are the primary development affiliate of the National Hockey League's Tampa ...

. Two years later, the

Edmonton Oilers The Edmonton Oilers are a professional ice hockey team based in Edmonton. The Oilers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. They play their home games at Rogers Place, which ...

moved their AHL affiliate into Copps Coliseum, as the

Hamilton Bulldogs The Hamilton Bulldogs are a major junior ice hockey team in the Ontario Hockey League that began to play in the 2015–16 OHL season, 2015–16 season. Based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the Bulldogs play their home games at FirstOntario Cent ...

Season-by-season results

Playoffs

See also