Victoria Royals

The Victoria Royals are a major junior hockey team representing Victoria, British Columbia in the Western Hockey League (WHL). The team began play in the 2011–12 season, after the league announced the relocation of the Chilliwack Bruins to the British Columbia capital. It will mark the return of the WHL to Vancouver Island, 17 years after the departure of the Victoria Cougars. The Royals will play its games at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre, and are members of the B. C. Division of the Western Conference.

Relocation
Victoria was left without a WHL team since the Cougars franchise relocated to Prince George in 1994. The city acquired a professional ECHL team in the Victoria Salmon Kings in 2004 when the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre was opened, but the city had made inquiries about returning the WHL to Vancouver Island in the past.

While two minority owners of the Chilliwack Bruins hoped to purchase the team and keep it in Chilliwack following the 2010–11 WHL season, they were outvoted by the remaining partners who opted to sell the team to a group planning to relocate the franchise. On April 20, 2011, the league announced the approval of both the sale, and the relocation of the Bruins to Victoria.

The relocation was brought about partially by the WHL's desire to protect the Victoria market, as the league feared that a potential summer relocation of the National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes to Winnipeg could result in the American Hockey League's Manitoba Moose moving to Victoria. The Moose ultimately moved to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador (where they are now known as the IceCaps) when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg to become the second incarnation of the Jets.

The Royals played their first game, a 5-2 loss against the Vancouver Giants in Vancouver on September 23, 2011. They won their first game in franchise history on September 24, 2011, defeating the Giants 5-3, in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,006 at SOFMC in Victoria.

Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, OL = Overtime losses, SL = Shootout losses, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against