Grin and bear it: Royals set to battle Ice

It must be that time of year. The Victoria Royals went for their annual Christmas skate at Butchart Gardens on Thursday night. The seasonal theme continues tonight with the annual Teddy Bear Toss game, in which a torrent of stuffed animals will come flying from the stands after the first Royals goal, to be donated to charity.

The opposition will be provided by the Kootenay Ice (13-16-1), a B.C. team that plays in the Eastern Conference, and only makes a visit to the Island every other season.

“Everybody wants to score it and there’s always a lot of discussion and joking in the room about who will be the guy to get that [bear-toss] goal,” said Royal forward Ryan Peckford.

The one who does tonight will join a list that includes Zane Jones, Axel Blomqvist, Ethan Price, Austin Carroll twice and Eric Florchuk last year in the six previous Royals bear-toss games, in which Victoria is 3-2-1.

A meaningless stat? Maybe. But consider that the Royals were pressing and dominating the first six minutes last Saturday in the Hurricanes’ Teddy Bear Toss night in Lethbridge, Alta. But when the Hurricanes’ Jake Elmer scored shorthanded against the flow at 6:23, the fur flew, and all of Victoria’s momentum was dissipated in the lengthy bear clean-up break that followed. The Royals ended up losing 4-1.

Peckford was on the ice for that Lethbridge goal and said it’s not too much fun when it goes against you. Peckford was injured during Victoria’s Teddy Bear game last season, but remembers being on the ice as a 16-year-old rookie when the bears rained down at the Memorial Centre that year.

Peckford is hoping his 14th goal of the season causes the flood of fur tonight. But the sweetest feeling on the Royals to score it would certainly belong to Jared Legien, who played for Kootenay the last time the Ice were on Blanshard in December of 2015. Legien, a 2013 top-10 WHL bantam draft pick of the Ice, has resuscitated his WHL career in Victoria with 13 goals and 31 points in 31 games after a stint last season in the Saskatchewan Junior League.

The Ice, who were rumoured to possibly be the Nanaimo Ice if the Harbour City’s soundly defeated arena referendum had passed last spring, have missed the playoffs the last two seasons. But with that comes high bantam draft picks, and on display tonight will be 2016 WHL first-overall selection Peyton Krebs, a 16-year-old rookie forward with six goals and 23 points in 25 games and a consensus rendezvous with the first round of the 2019 NHL draft. With the second overall WHL bantam pick this year, the Ice took forward Connor McClennon, and is suddenly a franchise with a big future upside. And it’s big in other ways, too, with 18 players six-foot or taller, including the entire blue line corps.

“Kootenay is a huge team,” said Peckford.

“We’ve got to push through and play our game.”

The Royals (18-10-3) are looking to rebound from a 0-2-2 road swing through the Eastern Conference.