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You just know this one felt good for the Victoria Royals. The Royals (2-13-1) snapped a 10-game WHL losing streak with a 2-1 overtime victory over the Prince George Cougars on Friday night in Kamloops.

Whether 22 games is a fair sample size in the Western Hockey League can be debated. But a season is a season in some sense.

The Kelowna Rockets look none the worse for wear after their COVID-19 outbreak, returning from nearly three weeks of isolation to go 5-1 since.

Victoria is no stranger to identical twins in sports, most famously when Gary and Paul Gait revolutionized the game of lacrosse.

The Vancouver Giants and Kamloops Blazers looked formidable last March, but the Victoria Royals were also deep in veteran talent and potentially lurking to spring a spring playoff surprise. We’ll never know, of course.

KAMLOOPS 3 VICTORIA 2 The Kamloops team in the Western Hockey League suffers from Toronto Blue Jays syndrome. Its championships from the early 1990s loom like a shadow over everything that has happened since.

It will not be a typo on the scoresheet.

The Victoria Royals have had two games lopped from their original 24-game WHL schedule because the league announced it will not the play all the contests postponed by the Kelowna Rockets’ recent COVID-19 outbreak.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the WHL made it official Monday that there will be no playoffs following the 24-game regular season. Which is a good thing for the Victoria Royals, because they were not going to get there, regardless.

Some might consider it an unenviable role for a graduating junior hockey player.