This story originally appeared in The Province.
The WHL is set to announce this week that the Penticton Vees will be an expansion team beginning next season and that the league is looking to have a team in Chilliwack for the 2026-27 campaign, according to league sources.
That matches up with a Saturday report from Hockey Night in Canadasa国际传媒 Elliotte Friedman.
The Vees and the Chilliwack Chiefs are two of the benchmark teams of the BCHL, the 21-team Junior A loop. Penticton (40-7-5-0) was first in the Interior Conference as of Sunday morning, while the Chiefs (35-12-5-0) sat atop the Coastal Conference. The Vees have been to the past three league finals, winning twice. The Chiefs were the last BCHL team to win the Centennial Cup national championship, taking it on home ice in 2018.
The BCHL regular season ends March 30.
There have been various reports of the Vees joining the WHL already. The WHL, BCHL and the Vees have all been yet to comment.
Penticton would be the 12th team in the WHLsa国际传媒 Western Conference and the sixth in the sa国际传媒 Division, joining the Vancouver Giants, sa国际传媒 Rockets, Kamloops Blazers, Victoria Royals and Prince George Cougars.
Junior A had been the chosen path for the players looking to play in the NCAA for decades, but that changed earlier this year when the NCAA announced it was opening up scholarship opportunities to players from major junior leagues like the WHL starting this summer.
Penticton is expected to have the same hockey operations staff next season as it does now, led by general manager/head coach Fred Harbinson. The Chilliwack story isn鈥檛 as clear yet, which explains why they鈥檙e taking a year before having a team start there.
Chiefs principal owner Moray Keith had a stake in the Chilliwack Bruins, who were part of the WHL for five years (2006-11) before moving to Vancouver Island to become the Royals. Keith wanted the Bruins to stay and has been public about how he wasn鈥檛 pleased with the WHL office regarding the situation.
All this ties into a Friday press release from the City of Chilliwack that explained that 鈥渙wnership鈥 of the Chilliwack Coliseum is reverting from the Chiefs back to the city on May 1. The Chiefs and the city had entered into a public-private partnership in 2002 to finance, design, build and operate the arena and it gave the hockey team control of the facility until all the debt around its construction was paid off.
Keith was quoted in the release as saying that the team is turning the rink back to Chilliwack 鈥渇our years early,鈥 having saved the city 鈥渃lose to $6 million鈥 in the process due to how they oversaw operations. The release also states that the city is working on an agreement with the Chiefs to continue managing the rink until May 1, 2026, and will work with the Chiefs and other current tenants on a transition plan.
That would make it seem that the Chiefs will continue to play there as part of the BCHL next season.
It doesn鈥檛 say directly that the Chiefs are out as main tenant after that, but Mayor Ken Popove is quoted as saying 鈥渨e wish them all the best as they move forward,鈥 in regards to the team.
Keith had talked about selling the Chiefs to the Vancouver Canucks in the past. The Canucks wanted to extend the contract regarding control of the Coliseum but the city wouldn鈥檛 oblige, and that nixed the deal. The Canucks do have control of the Abbotsford Centre, which is home to their AHL Abbotsford Canucks affiliate. It won鈥檛 be surprising to see Keith try cut a deal with the Canucks to move the Chiefs there.
There have been rumours for a couple of years about the WHL wanting to have a team back in Chilliwack. If you believe the scuttlebutt, there was a push to move Prince George there, but it never got to the finish line and has since been aborted.
Chilliwacksa国际传媒 a central point geographically for WHL teams making road trips up and down the province. Along with that, clubs like the Giants, Blazers, Rockets and now the Vees could all play there and be back in their homes that same night. In this era, where gas prices and hotel stays are ransacking team budgets, the league having a team in Chilliwack makes sense.
Theresa国际传媒 been no official word on the Vees鈥 expansion fee, but the rumour mill has it at more than $10 million, including a payment to the Rockets for territorial rights. Itsa国际传媒 believed that the new Chilliwack team would owe money for territorial rights to the Giants, who play out of the Langley Events Centre.
The Vees were one of the original teams in the BCHL when it was founded in 1961. The team has also used Knights and Panthers as monikers over the years. Brett Hull, Paul Kariya and Brendan Morrison are among the players who have played Junior A in Penticton.
The Chiefs came to Chilliwack in 1990 from Richmond. They stayed until 2006, moving to Langley when the Bruins and the WHL came to town. The Chiefs ownership group bought the defunct Quesnel Millionaires franchise and brought it back to Chilliwack when the Bruins left for Victoria. Chiefs graduates include Shawn Horcoff and Jeff Tambellini. Harvey Smyl, whosa国际传媒 the brother of Canuck great Stan Smyl, was their longtime coach.
The Vees were a driving force in the BCHL leaving Hockey Canada in May 2023 and becoming an independent league. That meant the league had to find their own pool of referees and linesmen and also had to pay its own insurance. The BCHL was upset with some of Hockey Canadasa国际传媒 regulations, most notably around player recruitment from other provinces.
The Vees have called a press conference for Monday, March 24, 2025 in Penticton.
