Vancouver Ice Hockey Teams

The Lower Mainland has numerous ice hockey teams, including the Vancouver Canucks (NHL), the Abbotsford Canucks (AHL), and the Vancouver Giants (WHL).

The Vancouver Canucks play at Rogers Arena at 800 Griffiths Way in downtown Vancouver. The Abbotsford Canucks play at the Abbotsford Centre in Abbotsford. The Vancouver Giants play at the Langley Events Centre in Langley.

There’s a new team coming to town in the fall of 2025! The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) unveiled Vancouver as its first expansion team. They will begin play in the 2025-26 season! The team will play its games at Pacific Coliseum at the PNE in Vancouver.

Ice Hockey in Vancouver

Hockey is the most popular sport in Canada, and Vancouver has plenty of love for it too. The Vancouver Canucks are the most well-known sports team in the city, but they aren’t the only hockey team around.

There is also the long-running Vancouver Giants who play in the WHL, one of the three top junior leagues that are part of the CHL, and the Abbotsford Canucks, who are the minor-league affiliate for the Canucks and play in the AHL. New in 2025 is Vancouver’s PWHL team who are a professional women’s hockey team!

Tickets to see the Giants and Abbotsford Canucks games are cheaper than the Vancouver Canucks, as they’re not at the highest level of play. That doesn’t mean that it’s not fun to go out and support those two teams, however! They give you the opportunity to support players who could one day play in the NHL and the majority of them (especially on the Giants) are Canadian! The PWHL, meanwhile, features many of the top women’s players that Canada has to offer!

The seasons for all four of these teams are very similar. During normal years the NHL and AHL seasons both go from October. The WHL season goes from September to May and the PWHL season goes from November to May. See below for details on all four of these Lower Mainland teams.

The Vancouver Canucks

The Canucks are the longest-running hockey franchise in the area. They entered the NHL in 1970 since 1995 play at Rogers Arena downtown (before that they played at Pacific Coliseum). They have not won a Stanley Cup but have won two Presidents’ Trophies and made the Stanley Cup Finals three times.

Tickets can get expensive, especially when the team is good. They can cost up to hundreds of dollars depending on where you’re sitting, and the cheapest ones are often around $50. If you can’t make it out to the arena, all of the Canucks’ games are broadcast on TV and radio by Sportsnet. You can also watch designated Hockey Night in Canada games on CBC.

After making it to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in the 2023-24 season, the Canucks took a step back the following year and didn’t qualify for the postseason. As of April 2025, the team is coached by Rick Tocchet, and managed by General Manager Patrik Allvin and President Jim Rutherford.

For more information check out our article on the Vancouver Canucks.

PWHL Vancouver

In April of 2025 Vancouver was awarded an expansion franchise for the PWHL, a relatively new women’s hockey league that began in 2023. The PWHL Vancouver team will begin play in the 2025-26 season.

The team will play out of Pacific Coliseum, located at 100 North Renfrew Street in Vancouver. Both the Canucks and the Vancouver Giants have played in the Coliseum at different points in their history!

For more details click PWHL Vancouver.

The Abbotsford Canucks

Up until 2021, the Vancouver Canucks’ minor league affiliate was the Utica Comets, a team based in New York state. Abbotsford used to have a team known as the Heat (which was an affiliate of the Calgary Flames), but they left in 2014. In 2021, however, hockey returned to the city when the Utica Comets were relocated to Abbotsford and became the Canucks. They play in the AHL, which is the minor league directly below the NHL.

The affiliation between Abbotsford and Vancouver means that players in the Canucks organization too old for junior hockey but not quite ready for the NHL play for the AHL team. The Canucks play at the Abbotsford Centre and tickets start at around $25, with the most expensive costing around $80. You can watch all the Canucks regular season games on AHL TV for $65 for the whole year (as of the last time we checked).

The Abbotsford Canucks have made it to the playoffs in each of their first four seasons. In 2024-25 the Canucks finished the regular season second in their division, their best record to date.

To learn more visit the Abbotsford Canucks website.

The Vancouver Giants

The Giants were founded in 2001 as the 5th BC team in the WHL. Up until 2016 their home rink was Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, but since then they’ve played at the Langley Events Centre. The WHL is a junior league, so all the players on the team must be between 15 and 20 years old. There is a maximum of two non-North American players allowed on each team as well.

The Giants have won the Ed Chynoweth Cup (champions of the WHL) once, in 2006, and have won the Memorial Cup (champions of the entire CHL) once, in 2007. Tickets to see the Giants range from around $20 to $45. You can listen to the games on Sportsnet radio, or watch them using the WHL Live streaming service. WHL Live costs a little over $100 for the full season.

In 2024-25 the Giants finished sixth in the Western Conference and lost their first round series 4-1 to the Spokane Chiefs. They’ve made the playoffs each year since 2017.

For more details click Vancouver Giants.