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Bruce Boudreau adds Vancouver Canucks’ championship wrestling belt to wall of Hershey home

By Chris Cerullo

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May 4, 2023 8:23 pm

Bruce Boudreau was only head coach of the Vancouver Canucks for a little over a year but the jovial bench boss seemed to make a special connection with the team’s fans. One that perhaps only Bruce can.

Boudreau’s tenure in Vancouver started with seven wins in a row and he quickly noticed that the team did not have something to bring them fully together after those victories. So, later in the season, a noted fan of professional wrestling, Boudreau introduced a Canucks-themed championship belt to be handed out to the team’s chosen player of the game.

During his final night as coach of Vancouver, Boudreau was gifted the belt by his players as a token of their love and appreciation.

“I’ll treasure it for the rest of my life because every time I look at it I’ll remember what we had together here,” Boudreau said then.

Now the belt officially hangs on a memento wall in his Hershey, PA home.

Bruce’s wife Crystal showed it off in a photo she posted on her Twitter account. The button-clasped belt has the Canucks logo squarely in the middle of the front plate with the words “The reigning and defending Gamenight Champ” encircling it.

Boudreau first introduced the belt on February 22 during the 2021-22 season. Finnish winger Juho Lammikko was the first recipient after he scored a game-winning goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Bruce told CanucksArmy in 2022 that he got the idea for the belt from one of his sons.

“My son had the belt [at one of his games] and I went in one game of his and seen how the reaction was and I said ‘if I coach, I’m gonna get this belt and see how it works’,” he said. “And it worked – it’s a player’s thing, but I wanted to implement it this year because we hadn’t had one before.”

The veteran head coach is also a well-documented fan of professional wrestling which hands out championship belts to the victors of its biggest matches. Boudreau met his favorite pro wrestler Kevin Owens while covering last year’s draft.

He was stunned with excitement, to say the least.

As for what’s next for Boudreau, he is still a coaching free agent. Three NHL teams are currently without a coach and two of them, the Anaheim Ducks and Washington Capitals, Boudreau has coached before. The Calgary Flames are the third squad with a vacant spot behind their bench.

During Boudreau’s final press conference in Vancouver, he stated his desire to find another job in the NHL.

“I still got the passion to do [coaching],” Boudreau said. “I never missed a practice that wasn’t an optional. I love the game and know the game. Hopefully, something works out. Hopefully, this isn’t my last hurrah.”

Screenshot via Vancouver Canucks

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