De facto

De facto is a situation where something is the case but it is not actually called that term.

In hockey some circumstances that would include a provincial champion being declared by a single league's playoffs making a team the provincial champion when there is a trophy for the league championship and a separate trophy for the provincial championship. For example the Baldy Northcott Trophy is symbolic of the Manitoba Junior B championship. There were two leagues in the province from the 1980's to the mid 2000's and the league champions would meet for the provincial championship. The Northwest Junior Hockey League (Manitoba) would fold in 2004. From 2004-05 to 2018 the Keystone Junior Hockey League was the only league at the Junior B level in the province and its' champion would be the de facto provincial champion. But in 2019 several teams from the league withdrew and formed the Capital Region Junior Hockey League.