Hershey Bears win 2024 Calder Cup, defeat Coachella Valley for second consecutive year

The Hershey Bears have won the 2024 Calder Cup thanks to a 5-4 overtime win over the Coachella Valley Firebirds in Game 6 on Monday.

It’s Hershey’s second straight title after beating Coachella Valley a year ago – the Firebirds’ first season in the AHL. Hershey is the AHL affiliate of the Washington Capitals, while Coachella Valley serves as Seattle farm club.

It’s Hershey’s 13th title, good for first in the AHL. No other active team has more than Rochester’s six, with no other team having more than the Chicago Wolves’ three.

The Firebirds started the series with a 4-3 Game 1 victory and even held a 2-1 lead after Game 3. But after tying the series with a 3-2 win in Game 4, the Bears repeated the score in Game 5 to put Coachella Valley on the outside looking in heading into tonight’s contest.

Coachella Valley got off to a good start on Monday, with Ryan Winterton scoring at 1:37 to make it 1-0. But a pair of goals from Pierrick Dube and Hendrix Lapierre made it 2-1, forcing the Firebirds to play catch-up. Fortunately for them, Marian Studenic scored at 21:51 before Winterton tallied his second of the game at 27:59.

From there, Dube’s massive game continued. He scored his second goal at 33:52 before finishing off the hat-trick with a goal 8:56 into the third period. It looked like it was going to stand as the game-winner, but Cale Fleury took Shane Wright’s pass and beat Hunter Shepard to force overtime.

But just like we saw in the first two periods, it didn’t take long for someone to score. At 1:06 in extra time, Matt Strome’s second of the playoffs proved to be the biggest goal of his pro career, beating Chris Driedger in close to win the game 5-4.

The Bears were led by numerous players with NHL experience in 2023-24, including Shepard, Lapierre, Ivan Miroshnichenko and Matthew Phillips.