Prior to 1991 the Anavet Cup winner would play for the Abbott Cup.The Abbott Cup was a playoff round, a best of seven game series, between the British Columbia/Alberta Interprovincial Champions (Doyle Cup) and the Saskatchewan/Manitoba Interprovincial Champions (Anavet Cup). The Abbott Cup winner progressed to the Canadian championship tournament. With the 1991realignment of regions and format for the Centennial Cup, (Royal Bank Cup), the winners of the Anavet Cup and the Doyle Cup both would go straight to the National Championship competition. Tradition was carried on at the Centennial Cup tournament, where the two western champions would meet in a single round robin game to claim the Abbott Cup title. The Abbott Cup had diminished in importance and was retired after the 1999 season.

In 2011, the four western leagues proposed to Hockey Canada and the Canadian Junior Hockey League that the Doyle Cup and Anavet Cup be discontinued in favour of a new tournament named the Western Canada Cup. Hockey Canada announced the tournament's creation in January 2012. Following the 2017 tournament, Hockey Canada scrapped the Western Canada Cup format and re-instated the Anavet and Doyle Cups for the 2017-18 season.