Ed Chynoweth Cup The Ed Chynoweth Cup is a club championship trophy awarded to the playoff champion of the Western Hockey League ( WHL ) . Originally called the President ' s Cup when the league was founded in 1966 , the trophy was renamed in 2007 to honour Ed Chynoweth ' s long service to junior hockey in Canada . The WHL champion earns a berth into the Memorial Cup tournament , Canada ' s major junior championship . The Kamloops Blazers have won the most championships with six , followed by the Medicine Hat Tigers with five . The Spokane Chiefs were the first team to win the renamed trophy in the 2007 – 08 WHL season . The current holders of the Ed Chynoweth Cup are the Kelowna Rockets . History . The WHL was founded in 1966 by seven teams from Alberta and Saskatchewan who were hoping to improve the quality of junior hockey in western Canada . Despite gaining approval from the governing bodies of both provinces , the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association ( CAHA ) objected to the formation of the interprovincial league , refusing to sanction the circuit and suspending all players and officials who participated in the league from participation in any CAHA league or event . Declared an " outlaw league " by the CAHA , the WHL ' s founders chose to play on , though the league was ruled ineligible to participate in the Memorial Cup , Canada ' s national junior championship . The first President ' s Cup champion was the Moose Jaw Canucks in 1967 . In 1971 , the CAHA reorganized the top level of junior hockey into two tiers , sanctioning the WHL as the top league in western Canada and one of three leagues that formed the " Major - Junior " tier , the others being the Ontario Hockey Association ( OHA ) ( today the Ontario Hockey League ( OHL ) ) and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League ( QMJHL ) , The 1971 champion Edmonton Oil Kings thus faced the Quebec Remparts in the 1971 Memorial Cup final , though , it nearly failed to materialize as the OHA and QMJHL initially refused to face the western champion . The Oil Kings were defeated by Quebec in an abbreviated series . The two teams played a best - of - three series , in which the first team with two victories won the title , as opposed to the normal best - of - seven ( first team to four wins ) . Three years later , in 1974 , the Regina Pats became the first WHL champion to win the national title . The New Westminster Bruins emerged as the first dynasty in league history , winning four consecutive championships between 1975 and 1978 , along with two Memorial Cups in 1977 and 1978 . In 1976 , the Portland Winter Hawks became the first American - based team in the WHL . Six years later , the 1981 – 82 Winter Hawks recorded more firsts , becoming the first American team to win the President ' s Cup as well as the first American team to compete for the Memorial Cup . One year later , the Winter Hawks won the 1983 Memorial Cup becoming the first American champion , and the first to win the Memorial Cup without winning its own league title , as Portland hosted the tournament and was guaranteed a spot in the tournament despite losing the WHL final to the Lethbridge Broncos . On December 30 , 1986 , four members of the Swift Current Broncos — Scott Kruger , Trent Kresse , Brent Ruff and Chris Mantyka — were killed when the team bus crashed outside Swift Current . The community rallied around the team , and less than three years later , the Broncos emerged as the top team in the Canadian Hockey League ( CHL ) . Featuring Scott Kruger ' s younger brothers Darren and Trevor , the 1988 – 89 Broncos became the first team in WHL history to sweep their way through the playoffs , winning the President ' s Cup without losing a single game in the post - season . The Broncos faced the host Saskatoon Blades in the 1989 Memorial Cup final , defeating their provincial rivals in the first all - WHL national championship . The Kamloops Blazers dominated the WHL in the early 1990s , capturing four league championships between 1990 and 1995 and three Memorial Cups to cap a period where WHL teams won seven Memorial Cup championships in a nine year period between 1987 and 1995 . In 2007 , the league renamed the championship trophy the Ed Chynoweth Cup in honour of Ed Chynoweth ' s long tenure with the league . Chynoweth had served as president of both the WHL and CHL , from 1972 and 1975 respectively , until leaving both posts in 1995 to form the Edmonton Ice . He remained with the franchise through its transfer to Kootenay until his death in 2008 . Chynoweth was described by Ontario Hockey League commissioner David Branch as being " the architect of the Canadian Hockey League as we know it today " . Chynoweth was posthumously elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2008 .