The Victoria Royals make their first visit Friday night to Swift Current, Sask., in nearly five years. The last time the Royals and Broncos met there, in November of 2017, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had just announced their engagement, Justin Bieber was cooing Despacito and Cale Makar was still with the Brooks Bandits.
A once-every-two-seasons itinerary to the Eastern Conference Central Division of the Western Hockey League — combined with the pandemic scrubbing out even that over the last two seasons — will do that to you.
The last time Victoria and Swift Current met there, the Broncos were on their way to the WHL championship and Matthew Phillips of the Royals was a Western Conference first-team all-star with the likes of Cody Glass and Carter Hart.
That seems like another world.
The Royals are 2-9-2 heading to Swift Current to play the 3-7 Broncos Friday night before going into Medicine Hat on Saturday to meet the 4-5-1 Tigers.
It’s one thing to lose out-of-conference games, as the Royals have this season, to Canadian Hockey League top-10 teams such as the Winnipeg Ice and Red Deer Rebels. It would be quite another to drop games against the likes of the Broncos and Tigers.
These next two are clearly games Victoria needs to target as victories to stay in touch in the Western Conference table.
“Swift Current has been building through the draft and has a good young group with a lot of high-end prospects,” warned Royals GM and head coach Dan Price.
“They’ve taken a similar road as Prince George [Cougars]. It’s a big challenge.”
But that youthful group, led by forward Brady Birnie who is ranked for the fourth-to-sixth rounds of the 2023 NHL draft, is still finding its legs as attested by the Broncos’ record this season.
“We have to bounce back strongly after [losing 6-2 in Red Deer on Wednesday] and make sure we respond in Swift Current,” said Price.
Victoria is in the midst of a six-game road swing through the Central Division, its first such trip since before the pandemic.
