Marlies celebrate Calder Cup with moving Rodion Amirov tribute

Ryan Hardy turned the Marlies’ Calder Cup celebration into a tribute to Rodion Amirov, surprising the room by wearing the late prospect’s No. 72 jersey after Toronto beat the Chicago Wolves 4-3 in Game 5. The Marlies won the final 4-1 on June 20, 2026, giving the franchise its second AHL championship and its first since 2018 in front of a sold-out Coca-Cola Coliseum.

The moment gave the Cup clincher a deeper edge than the scoreline alone. Hardy’s jersey choice tied the current team to one of the most important prospects in recent franchise history, a player Toronto selected 15th overall in the 2020 NHL Draft. Amirov died in August 2023 at age 21 after battling a brain tumor, and the sight of his No. 72 on the ice made the celebration feel less like a standard trophy handoff and more like a shared remembrance inside the organization.

Artur Akhtyamov, who was named the AHL’s Jack A. Butterfield Trophy winner as playoff MVP, held Amirov’s sweater during team photos after the win. Akhtyamov and Amirov were teammates on Russia’s junior national teams, and he called the tribute personal, saying, “It means a lot. He was my friend.” That detail mattered in a room full of players, staff and fans because it linked the night’s biggest individual honor to a friendship that had already crossed team boundaries and survived Amirov’s death.

The tribute was not treated as a one-off gesture, either. Amirov’s No. 72 sweater had been hanging in the Marlies’ dressing room at Coca-Cola Coliseum and at the Ford Centre practice facility, making it clear the organization had carried his memory through the season and into the championship run. On a night when Toronto’s development pipeline delivered its latest reward, the club chose to frame the victory around continuity as much as accomplishment.

That is what made the celebration resonate. The Marlies were not only celebrating a 4-1 series win over Chicago and a trophy returned to Toronto after eight years. They were also showing that the franchise’s identity runs through the players who helped shape it, including Amirov, whose name remained part of the room even at the highest point of the season.