A teddy bear toss timelapse with the Coachella Valley Firebirds
See a timelapse of the Coachella Valley Firebirds’ teddy bear toss at Acrisure Arena
This is how the other half lives, as the saying goes.
For two years, every time the Firebirds took the ice, the feeling in Acrisure Arena oozed «I know we’re going to win, no matter what.» This year it was «I think we can win, if things go well.»
That’s why a season ending on May 9 instead of June 21 or June 24 like the first two years has left the Firebirds flock a little shell-shocked.
It’s a reality check. And even if it was one your brain and your eyes could see coming for months, it doesn’t make it any less hard to take.
«Sobering» is a good word to describe it. This is what it’s supposed to be like rooting for an American Hockey League team, not what we enjoyed the first two years. Back-to-back Calder Cup Finals trips? That was the outlier. That was not normal, even though it was our normal.
And now we know how lucky we had it. Remember that «silver spoon» other teams labeled us with last season, leading to Andrew Poturalski having fun with it by bringing a big silver spoon to a press conference? Now we understand our good fortune more clearly.
I go back to a statistic I unearthed after last season. Of the 32 current AHL teams, only 10 have ever made it to two Calder Cup finals. The Firebirds are one of those 10, and they did it in two years. We caught lightning in a bottle, it was fun and it was electric, but it wasn’t normal.
This year was our first «real» AHL season. AHL teams are mostly made up of young players drafted by the organization, with a handful of veterans mixed in. Not the other way around.
The 2024-25 Firebirds played hard. I can tell you from talking to the players and coaches after and between games, they wanted to win, they had the desire to win. Look no further than their impressive penalty kill, one of the best in the league, with guys sacrificing their bodies every night in front of a talented but young goalie in Nikke Kokko.
The «want to» was there, they just couldn’t overwhelm the opposing team with talent like they had been able to in years past. It felt like every night they had to play an almost perfect game to come out on top.
And while every AHL team has injuries and player movement up and back from the NHL club, this year’s Firebirds had more than their fair share. Captain Max McCormick last played in January. Cale Fleury, Lleyton Roed and Eduard Sale all missed important time. And then just when a guy gets hot at the right time like Mitchell Stephens with three goals in the first two playoff games, he gets injured and misses the Abbotsford series — a crushing blow.
New head coach Derek Laxdal had a tough job this year. Moving parts. Unlucky breaks. The team was never really able to get any continuity, and that’s not a good recipe for success. He was moving pieces in and out of the lineups during the playoffs like a guy playing speed chess in a New York City park.
So we look ahead to next season. There will be a lot of changes, as there always is. Free agent players will leave. New free agents will arrive. When the new head coach of the Seattle Kraken is named, will that have a trickle-down effect on the Firebirds? We’ve got a longer-than-normal summer ahead to figure that out.
But another change that needs to take place will come from the fans in the way of expectations. It was unrealistic to think the team would be in the Calder Cup Finals every year. Obviously, fans knew that, but now they’ve lived it. Now it’s crystal clear.
That’s not to say the Firebirds will never be back in a Calder Cup Final, but what we witnessed the first two years was special, not sustainable.
I hesitate to even say this year’s team failed to live up to expectations. With the roster they had and the well-documented injuries and attrition, this team felt like it should rightly be a middle-of-the-pack Pacific Division team and that’s what they were. They finished fourth in the division, had an impressive first-round sweep in the 4-5 matchup with Calgary and then lost to a No. 2 Abbotsford team that is now 21-4 in its last 25 games.
That’s not an epic fail. That’s a perfectly acceptable, respectable season. They were still a top-half team in the AHL, even with their struggles to score on the power play, and ever-changing lineups. They made another playoff trip and picked up another playoff series win.
So count the 2024-25 season as a reality check. This is what AHL fandom is really like. It’s not supposed to be easy.
The lightning is out of the bottle. The silver spoon is securely back in the drawer. However you want to say it, this is normal even if it’s a new normal around here. And you know what Firebirds flock? There’s nothing wrong with that.
And yes, it’s still early May, but October isn’t too far away.
Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Have a question about the Firebirds? Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.
