Coastal Clash. Salish Sea Showdown. Georgia Strait War.
Call it what you will, rivals the Vancouver Giants and Victoria Royals are set to do battle again Wednesday night.
The meeting is only the second of 10 times these clubs will face each other this season. Their previous meeting saw the Royals take a 3-1 victory in Langley on October 20th.
Vancouver (13-11-1-1) and Victoria (13-8-2-0) find themselves deadlocked in the tight BC Division with 28 points each. The Royals, however, have three games in hand. Both clubs have had success in their last 10 games, with the Giants going 6-3-0-1 over that stretch and the Royals sporting a 7-2-1-0 record through their last ten.
“Even with some of their struggles, they’re a good hockey team,” said Royals forward Gary Haden. “They went to WHL finals last year for a reason. A lot of returning guys from that team. So, if they are in a little bit of a funk right now, we just have to play hard and not take them for granted.”
It is sage advice from Haden, one of Victoria’s veteran players. Vancouver boasts an impressive list of NHL Affiliated Players – Milos Roman (Calgary Flames), Trent Miner (Colorado Avalanche), Bowen Byram (Colorado Avalanche), David Tendeck (Arizona Coyotes), and Alex Kannok-Leipert (Washington Capitals).
Royals defenceman Jacob Herauf expects the usual battle. “Vancouver is a tough team,” said Herauf. “They work hard, are skilled with a lot of good players in the team. So, we will try to work hard and match up against that talent and their level of compete level.”
The division standings may come as surprise to some who, in the preseason, predicted the 2019 Western Conference Champion Giants to continue to roll, while pegging the Royals as struggling to make the playoffs.
For the Royals, there was never any doubt that they would be right in the middle of a BC Division fight.
“I think it’s just like the variety of characters we have,” said Haden. “We have guys that have played around the league and guys that have only been in Victoria their whole career. And they mix as well together.”
“We have a lot of the older guys and we know how to win. It’s that never say die attitude. We just have to go out and execute as we’ve been doing lately, and we can keep stringing wins together.”
Wednesday’s game between with Giants and Royals starts at 7:05pm at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena.
