B.C. Division, Insight

Victoria Royals end 2020 Memorial Cup bid and main camp opens with roster questions

Written by Ryan Sinclair on

Royals out for 2020 bid

On the first day of main training camp for the Victoria Royals the biggest news of the day came off the ice.  News broke around midday that the Royals would be pulling their bid for to host the 2020 Memorial Cup. In a surprising move, Victoria announced they would focus on attracting the CHL event in 2023, the next time it will likely be awarded to a team in the WHL.

Earlier this summer, the DUBNetwork spoke with Royals President and General Manager Cameron Hope about the merits of a bid, and  the team seemed all-in. Victoria’s interest on bidding for the 2020 Memorial Cup was interesting, considering the time-frame is relatively close to another premiere junior hockey event that they are involved in, co-hosting the World Junior Hockey Championships this year with Vancouver. While the city of Victoria clearly has many attractive attributes to attract another marquee junior hockey championship, another event so close to the WJHC may indeed end up suffering from fan fatigue.

With Victoria’s exit, the three remaining teams left in the bidding are the Kamloops Blazers, Kelowna Rockets and Lethbridge Hurricanes.

Changing of the guard

The Victoria Royals went into the 2018 offseason with many roster moves and hard decisions to make. While many of the adjustments have been made, the Royals open their main training camp on Monday with some roster questions still be answered.

Following a second round exit in the playoffs to the Tri-City Americans, Victoria was faced with the problem  of much of their top-end talent moving on for the 2018-19 season.  Franchise leading scorer Tyler Soy aged-out, along with defensemen Chaz Reddekopp and Kade Jensen. Other likely departures include team captain Matthew Phillips, who looks skip his last year of eligibility to go professional with the Calgary Flames organization. Like Phillips, Tanner Kaspick will look to make the jump to the pros with the St.Louis Blues organization. Lane Zablocki was also not in camp and heads into camp with the Detroit Red Wings, unsigned, hoping to earn a contract.

Victoria’s hand was also forced in trimming down their crop of 1998 born players, as they are only allowed to carry three on their roster. Gone are defensman Jared Freadrich to the Portland Winterhawks and Noah Gregor to the Prince Albert Raiders.

Camp Over-agers

The Royals start camp down to three 20-year-old players in Dante Hannoun, Ralph Jarratt and Griffen Outhouse. All three have only played for the Royals in the WHL and are clearly positive products of the Victoria system. Should one of Phillips, Kaspick or Zablocki – with Zablocki being the most likely -be returned to the Royals, it would make for a difficult decision to narrow it down to just three over-agers. One would have to think that Outhouse would be an attractive prize to many teams, but moving the fan-favourite would not be a popular move.

Youth Movement

Last year out of training camp, defenseman Matthew Smith cracked the main roster and played admirably throughout his first full WHL season. This year, Remy Aquilon (’01), Kaden Reinders (’02) and Noah Lamb (’02) hope to join the corps. Up front, Tarun Fizer made some good strides, particularly towards the end of the season as his game noticeably grew stronger. This year’s camp roster shows that there is further opportunities for forwards the likes of Tyus Gent (’01), Alex Boishakov (’02) and Ty Yoder (’02).

Camp Notes

  • Not listed on the camp roster is d-man Scott Walford. Presumably Walford has recovered from his shoulder injury and is headed to the Montreal Canadiens camp, but it will be interesting to see how he is progressing
  • Another defenseman not listed in camp is off-season acquisition Brayden Gorda. It is unknown if he has decided to stay home or is in limbo.
  • The Royals made a couple signings in camp, first with Matthew Hodson, who they selected in the third round, 52nd overall, in WHL Bantam Draft this past May. Victoria then signed forward Trentyn Crane, who was selected in the fifth round, 103rd overall.
  • Joining former captain Joe Hicketts as a guest in camp were other former Royals Tyler Soy and Chaz Reddekopp. Soy and Reddekopp were seen on the ice during the goalie sessions, each preparing for their hockey careers after the WHL.