Newmarket Royals
| Newmarket Royals | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| City | Newmarket, Ontario |
| League | Ontario Hockey League |
| Division | Leyden |
| Operated | 1992–94 |
| Home arena | Newmarket Recreational Complex |
| Colours | Blue, white and red |
| Franchise history | |
| 1969–1992 | Cornwall Royals |
| 1992–1994 | Newmarket Royals |
| 1994–present | Sarnia Sting |
The Newmarket Royals were a junior ice hockey team in the Ontario Hockey League from 1992 to 1994. They played out of Newmarket, Ontario, Canada.
The Royals franchise started in 1969 as the Cornwall Royals of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The Cornwall Royals won the Memorial Cup in 1972, 1980, and in 1981. For the 1981–82 season, the team transferred into the Ontario Hockey League.
In 1992 the Cornwall Royals moved to Newmarket, Ontario to play as the Newmarket Royals. This team should be not be confused with a different Newmarket Royals team in the OMHA in the early 1980s.
The first year for the Newmarket Royals was moderately successful, finishing 5th in the Leyden Division with a winning record. In the playoffs that year the Royals faced the Sudbury Wolves in a very heated 7 game series, won by the Wolves.
For every goal the Royals scored at home in the series that year (11 in total), a stuffed wolf was hung in the rafters. This was a move mocking the Sudbury Wolves stuffed wolf that howls at opposing bench whenever the home team Wolves score.
The second Royals season is best forgotten. The Newmarket Royals were the only team in OHL and CHL history to go winless in away games for an entire season. The Royals finished last in the OHL, 18 points behind the next closest team.
At the start of the 1993–94 season, the team was bought by the Ciccarelli brothers and a year later moved to Sarnia, Ontario to begin play as the Sarnia Sting.
Both Shawn Mackenzie and Don Boyd, coaches of the Newmarket Royals were former goalies. Don Boyd previously coached the London Knights and the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.
Shawn Mackenzie, a native of Bedford, Nova Scotia played in the OHL for the Windsor Spitfires and Oshawa Generals, and briefly for the New Jersey Devils in 1983. He later coached the Halifax Mooseheads in the QMJHL.
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