Kipkie and Misskey aren’t a red-suspendered law firm with late-night TV ads. Their office is the Victoria Royals’ blue line where they conduct business as the Western Hockey League club’s cornerstone defencemen with the very handy rhyming last names.
“Kipkie and Misskey are our top defencemen,” said Royals head coach James Patrick.
Patrick has an appreciation and keen eye for such things after having skated on NHL blue lines for two decades as a player and also in the Canada Cup and Olympic Games. He also knows how foundational defencemen on teams have to soak up extra minutes, especially when the ranks grow thinner, as they have for the Royals with WHL veteran Cosmo Wilson injured.
“I know there’s some fatigue with Kipkie and Misskey,” said Patrick, in a media scrum on the road, where the Royals are midway through an eight-game road trip, the longest of the season.
That didn’t stop Royals’ captain Kipkie from recording his 100th career WHL point in Victoria’s last game, a 3-2 victory in Lethbridge against the Hurricanes, that moved the Western Conference fourth-place Royals to 3-1 on the road swing and 12-6-3 overall heading into tonight’s game in Edmonton against the Eastern Conference ninth-place Oil Kings (8-10-2) in the big-league surroundings of Rogers Place.
“It started with the minutes [Kipkie] played,” said Patrick.
“Some of our younger defencemen sat for long stretches because of special teams, and it’s hard to put them out in some of the late situations — so Kipkie played 32 minutes. He defensively kills penalties and is on the power play as well. That’s what you need from your top players. He has an elite shot and at times we want him to take it more. The sky’s the limit [for him], put it that way.”
Utah HC is hopeful that is so, plucking Kipkie in the fifth round of the 2023 NHL draft when the club was known as the Arizona Coyotes. Misskey, who leads the Royals in plus-minus rating at plus-7, was selected in the fifth round of the 2024 NHL draft by the San Jose Sharks.
Meanwhile, Wilson is listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury. Royals forward Tanner Scott is still week-to-week with an upper-body issue and forward Daniel Morozov is out indefinitely. Key sophomore Victoria forward Cole Reschny, ranked by Central Scouting for the first round of the 2025 NHL draft, missed the last two games but is not on this week’s injury report and so should be back tonight.
The Oil Kings, meanwhile, will be led tonight by six-foot-four defenceman Blake Fiddler, the son of former NHLer Vern Fiddler. The younger Fiddler played his youth hockey in Texas, when his dad was with the Stars, and captained the U.S. in the 2024 Under-18 Hlinka Gretzky Cup and faced Reschny, who was the co-scoring leader for gold-medallist Canada. Like Reschny, Fiddler is ranked by Central Scouting for the first round of the 2025 NHL draft. The two will be teammates next week on the Canadian Hockey League squad that will play the centralized U.S. Under-18 team in the CHL-USA Prospects Challenge Nov. 26 and Nov. 27 in London and Oshawa, Ont.
After leaving Edmonton down Highway 2, the Royals will play Friday night in Calgary against the Hitmen (8-7-4) and in Red Deer (9-9-2) on Saturday against Rebels captain Ollie Josephson from Victoria, an NHL draft pick of the Seattle Kraken. The extended swing concludes Nov. 27 in Everett, Washington, against the Silvertips and prodigy rookie defenceman Landon DuPont, only the second player after current Chicago Blackhawks sophomore forward Connor Bedard to receive exceptional status to play in the WHL as a 15-year-old.
Victoria has beaten the Hurricanes, Seattle Thunderbirds and Kamloops Blazers on the away tour with the only setback to date a 5-1 loss in Medicine Hat as the projected 2026 NHL draft top-pick Gavin McKenna scored twice for the Tigers.
The Royals return to the Memorial Centre Nov. 29-30 against the Thunderbirds.
