Before the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers battled to be Alberta’s team, the Vancouver Canucks made a bid.
It may seem strange now, given that the Flames and Oilers are two of the Canucks’ biggest rivals, but when the Canucks first entered the NHL, they were the only Canadian team in the league west of Ontario.
Alberta hadn’t had professional hockey in some time, with both the Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Flyers of the WHL — the same league the pre-NHL Canucks played in — folding in 1963. The Canucks, in joining the NHL, aimed to become the professional hockey team for all of Western Canada: both British Columbia and the prairies.
That meant the first time the Vancouver Canucks hit the ice in their new stick-in-rink jerseys, it wasn’t even in B.C., let alone Vancouver.
It was in Calgary.
The Canucks' first-ever training camp
The Canucks’ 2025-26 training camp will be held in Penticton, B.C., which is a bit of a schlep from Vancouver for the media, but it was a much longer journey for Vancouver media back in September of 1970, as they had to travel to the other side of the Rockies to cover the Canucks’ first training camp.
CBC News made the trek — or used their local newscasters in Calgary — and could be seen interviewing George Gardner, Gary Doak, Orland Kurtenbach, Pat Quinn, and head coach Hal Laycoe in this classic clip.
“I think the fans’ll be a little better [than Toronto fans],” said Quinn, knowing exactly how to appeal to fans in the West. “The Maple Leafs fans tend to sit on their hands a little bit and act like they’re at an opera, rather than a hockey game. I hope the Vancouver fans don’t turn out that way, and I know they won’t.”
Before Quinn and the Canucks could play in front of Vancouver fans, however, they played in front of fans in Alberta and Manitoba. The Canucks started their preseason schedule with six games in the prairie provinces: two games in Calgary, two games in Edmonton, and a game each in Red Deer and Winnipeg.
It was a tough schedule at the time, with the Canucks playing three games in three nights against the Minnesota North Stars, then three games in three nights against the Los Angeles Kings in the prairies before they finally returned to B.C. to play three games in Vancouver against the Chicago Black Hawks and Toronto Maple Leafs and one in Victoria against the Kings.
The games certainly earned the Canucks some attention east of the Rockies.
According to The Province’s Tom Watt, the Canucks played in front of a sellout crowd in Edmonton in their first preseason game. To be fair, that was just 5,200 fans, which was all that could fit inside the Edmonton Gardens at the time.
The next night’s game in Calgary at the Stampede Corral saw a “standing room crowd of 7,303,” according to the Vancouver Sun’s Hal Sigurdson, while the game in Winnipeg was more sparsely attended at 4,567, far from the capacity of the Winnipeg Arena.
"The Canucks don't belong to Vancouver alone"
The Canucks certainly made an impression on the rest of Western Canada. Heck, according to Sun columnist Jim Kearney at the time, they earned B.C. the right to be Western Canada.
“Would you believe it has taken the establishment of a National Hockey League franchise here to make British Columbia truly a part of Western Canada?” quipped Kearney in a September 22, 1970 column.
“Out here we’ve never considered B.C. as really a part of Western Canada,” said one hockey fan from Saskatchewan quote anonymously in Kearney’s column. “We’ve always looked upon you people as those kooks on the other side of the mountain.
“But not any more. You’ve got the NHL team now and I’m telling you, that makes you one of us. Everyone here is a hockey fan and a Canadian, so naturally we root for the Canadian teams in the NHL. But we’re goddam (sic) sick and tired of having to pull for Toronto or Montreal.”
“As far as we’re concerned, the Canucks don’t belong to Vancouver alone,” said a fan in Calgary, according to Kearney. “They’re Western Canada’s entry in the NHL.”
It wasn’t just sentiment either; there was a financial benefit for the fledgling Canucks as well.
“The Canucks have sold more than 125 20-game packages on the prairies, most of them in Calgary and Edmonton, where they have been tied into game night charter airlifts to Vancouver,” said Kearney. “For $64, the Calgary or Edmonton fan will get return plane passage, supper en route, transportation both ways between the airport and the Coliseum, and a $5 ticket to the game.”
No longer Western Canada's team
The Canucks kept going back to Alberta for training camp through 1973, alternating between Medicine Hat and Calgary. Their preseason schedule saw them continue to play in the prairies, with games in Calgary, Edmonton, Medicine Hat, and Winnipeg, as well as delving into Washington with games in Seattle and Spokane.
The team’s 1974 training camp, however, moved to Victoria, B.C., taking the spot at Memorial Arena previously claimed by the Los Angeles Kings for their training camps. That year, the Canucks played just one preseason game in the prairies: an inter-league game against the Edmonton Oilers of the World Hockey Association (WHA). The Canucks won that particular contest 4-1.
It’s understandable that the positive feelings from the prairies towards the Canucks didn’t last. Part of it was likely because of the Canucks’ early struggles as an expansion franchise, failing to make the playoffs in their first four seasons.
But another big reason was the emergence of the WHA.
Suddenly, the prairies had professional teams again, this time with some legitimate stars. The Oilers were named the Alberta Oilers for the WHA’s inaugural season in 1972-73, while Manitoba had the Winnipeg Jets.
The appeal of flying to Vancouver to watch an NHL game that the Canucks were likely to lose lost its appeal compared to cheering for a local team.
Eventually, the Oilers and Jets joined the NHL when the two leagues merged in 1979, then Calgary got their own NHL team when the Atlanta Flames relocated in 1980.
For a decade, the Canucks were the only NHL team in Western Canada, but in 1980, they went back to being the “kooks” on the other side of the Rockies.
Canucks 1970 preseason record
For whatever reason, the Canucks’ preseason schedule and record from their inaugural season is impossible to find on the internet. As I was reading through newspaper archives to research this article, I also pieced together that schedule, so here it is in all of its 3-4-3 glory.
