Image: Chaisson Creative, via Alberni Valley Bulldogs /

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Chilliwack Chiefs

Alberni Valley to face Chilliwack Chiefs in BCHL playoffs for 3rd straight year

Apr 18, 2025 | 5:49 PM

CHILLIWACK — The Alberni Valley Bulldogs need no introduction to the Chilliwack Chiefs and their coaching staff.

For the third straight year, the two teams will meet in the BCHL playoffs, as the Bulldogs visit the Chiefs in Chilliwack tonight to open their best of seven Coastal Conference semi final series.

After what had to have been an unsettling week of travelling to Nanaimo to practice while they awaited their opponent, and ultimately finding out that for the second round of the playoffs they will need to adopt a new home – the Bulldogs are back in familiar territory tonight.

This is the second consecutive season that they’ll meet in the second round, and the second year in a row that the Bulldogs will open on the road.

After defeating the Coquitlam Express in a seven game thriller to open the playoffs last season the Bulldogs were again the underdogs in round two against the Chiefs, but pulled off an improbable four game sweep, stealing the first two games in Chilliwack before winning the next two at home to lead to a post-series hand shake at the Dawg Pound.

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The Bulldogs were the higher seed in the Coastal Conference final series in 2022-2023, in winning in a four game sweep in the Coliseum in Chilliwack to win the Cliff McNabb trophy to advance to their first Fred Page Cup appearance in franchise history.

It will be eerily similar territory to last year – and last round, as the Bulldogs visit the Chiefs for games one and two tonight and tomorrow.

The Chiefs won the season series head to head with a 4-0 record, while the Bulldogs from their perspective were 0-3-1-0 head to head. The first two games were prior to December at the Dawg Pound, with Chilliwack winning 4-3 in overtime on September 28th and 8-6 in a wild and crazy affair on November 30th. They won the next two in Chilliwack in a span of 20 days – 4-1 on January 25th and 3-1 in a Valentine’s Day affair.

The Bulldogs of course advanced to the second round with a 4-3 win a week ago tonight in game five in Surrey, and one has to hope they will be rested and energized. The Chiefs meanwhile last played on Tuesday night as they went the distance with the Prince George Spruce Kings, winning a game seven 4-0 at home.