It doesn’t get any more mistily West Coast than this in the Western Hockey League. The Victoria Royals (17-11-6) and Vancouver Giants (16-13-4) will play a back-to-back, cross-strait matinee set to bring down the curtain on 2024 and usher in 2025.
It begins at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre today at 2 p.m. with a New Year’s Eve Day game that will be followed by a watch party of the sa国际传媒-USA world junior championship group game on the arena big screen.
Two players in the building, meanwhile, can look up at the screen and wonder if they will be skating together in sa国际传媒 colours in the 2026 world championship. Forwards Cole Reschny of the Royals and Cameron Schmidt of the Giants lead their teams in points and both are touted for the first round of the 2025 NHL draft and will certainly be in the conversation for next year’s Canadian world junior team.
Meanwhile, it’s club play they are currently focused on as the Royals and Giants will board ferries for their New Year’s Day encounter Wednesday at 2 p.m. at the Langley Events Centre.
The Royals swept the Giants 4-0 and 6-3 in their last cross-strait set this month and lead the season series 2-0 between the coastal sa国际传媒 rivals. The Giants, however, have won three consecutive games since being taken by the Royals.
Victoria, meanwhile, returned from the break and mustered only a point of a possible four against the Prince George Cougars over the weekend at the Memorial Centre. Yet the Royals acquitted themselves well as both games against the highly-talented Cougars (20-9-5) were tight 2-1 affairs, one going to shootout, and both hung in the balance. A telling feature of how hard the Royals pressed is that the first star both nights was Prince George goaltender Joshua Ravensbergen, who might be giving the Team sa国际传媒 selectors well-deserved second thoughts about leaving him off the team for the world juniors.
“We’ve got to stick with our game plan. That is playing hard, moving feet, getting pucks deep and really battling it out in offensive zone like that, and locking it down in the D zone,” said Royals captain and Utah HC draft-pick Justin Kipkie.
It doesn’t get any easier for the Royals following the Giants set as they will meet the league-leading Everett Silvertips (27-5-3) on Friday and Saturday nights. It will be the first visit to the Memorial Centre of prodigy defenceman Landon DuPont, only the second player after current Chicago Blackhawks sophomore forward Connor Bedard to receive exceptional status to play in the WHL as a 15-year-old and the ninth in Canadian Hockey League history on a list that includes Connor McDavid and John Tavares.
DuPont is the real deal and on Monday was named WHL player of the week for his three goals and two assists for five points in the two-game Puget Sound-rivalry sweep of the Seattle Thunderbirds.
