The Victoria Royals are a Canadian major junior ice hockey team currently members of the B.C. Division of the Western Conference in the Western Hockey League (WHL). The team began play during the 2011–12 season after the League announced the relocation of the Chilliwack Bruins to Victoria. It marked the return of the WHL to Vancouver Island, 17 years after the departure of the Victoria Cougars. The Royals are based in Victoria, British Columbia, and play their home games at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.
History
Victoria was left without a WHL team when the Cougars franchise relocated to Prince George in 1994. The city acquired a professional ECHL team in the Victoria Salmon Kings in 2004 when the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre was opened, but the city had made inquiries about returning the WHL to Vancouver Island in the past.
While two minority owners of the Chilliwack Bruins hoped to purchase the team and keep it in Chilliwack following the 2010–11 season, they were outvoted by the remaining partners who opted to sell the team to a group planning to relocate the franchise. On April 20, 2011, the WHL announced the approval of both the sale, and the relocation of the Bruins to Victoria.
The relocation was brought about partially by the WHL's desire to protect the Victoria market, as the league feared that a potential summer relocation of the National Hockey League (NHL)'s Phoenix Coyotes to Winnipeg could result in the American Hockey League (AHL)'s Manitoba Moose moving to Victoria. The Moose ultimately moved to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador and became the St. John's IceCaps, when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg to become the second incarnation of the Jets.
The Royals played their first game, a 5–2 loss against the Vancouver Giants in Vancouver on September 23, 2011. They won their first game in franchise history on September 24, 2011, defeating the Giants 5–3, in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,006 at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria.
On March 16, 2012, the Royals defeated the Portland Winterhawks 3–1, thus clinching their first ever playoff berth and the first in Victoria since 1989. The first-ever playoff goal was scored by Robin Soudek, while Jamie Crooks recorded the first playoff hat-trick in Royals history in Game 3. In spite of this, the Royals were swept in the first round by the Kamloops Blazers.
Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, OTL = Overtime losses, SOL = Shootout losses, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against
Head coaches
On June 22, 2012, Marc Habscheid, the first head coach and general manager of the Royals, left both positions to take an executive position with GSL Holdings Ltd., the parent company of the Royals' ownership group. The Royals named Cam Hope, formerly an assistant general manager of the NHL's New York Rangers, as their new GM on July 6.
On July 19, 2012, the Royals named Dave Lowry as head coach for the 2012–13 season. Lowry coached the Royals for five seasons, leading the team to franchise highs in wins and points on the way to a Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy as WHL regular season champions in 2015-16. After failing to achieve significant playoff success with the Royals, Lowry left the club to take a job as an assistant coach with the NHL's Los Angeles Kings in 2017.
On June 12, 2017, the Royals promoted assistant coach Dan Price to the head coaching position. Price became the fourth head coach in franchise history, and third since the team relocated from Chilliwack to Victoria.
List of coaches
Marc Habscheid, 2011–2012
Dave Lowry, 2012–2017
Dan Price, 2017–present
Players
Current roster
Updated October 6, 2023
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Team captains
Hayden Rintoul, 2011–2012
Tyler Stahl, 2012–2013
Jordan Fransoo, 2013–2014
Joe Hicketts, 2014–2016
Ryan Gagnon, 2016–2017
Matthew Phillips, 2017–2018
Phillip Schultz, 2019–2020
Tarun Fizer, 2021–2022
Gannon Laroque, 2022–2023
NHL alumni
The following is a list of players from the Victoria Royals who have played in the National Hockey League.
Noah Gregor
Joe Hicketts
Brayden Pachal
Matthew Phillips
Brayden Tracey
Club records
Note: The following club records do not include statistics from the Chilliwack Bruins and are complete through the end of the 2018–19 WHL season.