The 2012 Royal Bank Cup was the 42nd Junior "A" 2012 ice hockey National Championship for the Canadian Junior Hockey League. The 2012 Royal Bank Cup marked the 42nd consecutive year a national championship had been awarded to this skill level since the breakaway of Major Junior hockey in 1970.
The tournament's round robin stage began on May 5, 2012, and the final was played on May 13, 2012. Tournament games were played at the Elgar Peterson Arena in Humboldt, Saskatchewan. Like every other year of the RBC round robin, it consisted of 5 teams in 2012.
Format
Since the Humboldt Broncos were the 2012 SJHL regular season champions and playoff champions, the Broncos still moved on to compete for the 2012 Anavet Cup. The Broncos turned out to be successful in the best of 7 2012 Anavet Cup series, defeating the 2012 MJHL playoff champion the Portage Terriers 4–3. Since the Humboldt Broncos hosted the 2012 RBC, the Portage Terriers received a berth in the tournament because every year during the RBC tournament the host teams automatically play, even if they missed or lost out of the playoffs early.[2]
The Penticton Vees of the BCHL entered the tournament as BCHL and Doyle Cup champions, with a BCHL record 42-game winning streak under their belt from earlier in the year. While breaking the BCHL record, the Vees rivaled but did not surpass the nationwide Junior A records of the 1999-2000 Rayside-Balfour Sabrecats (49 games, NOJHL), 1989-90 Sudbury Cubs (48 games, NOJHL), or 1981-82 Flin Flon Bombers (46 games, NJHL).
Final
The Penticton Vees won their second-ever National Junior A Championship with a 4–3 come-from-behind victory over the Maritime Junior Hockey League's Woodstock Slammers. The Vees led 2–0, but the Slammers stormed back to take a 3–2 lead past the halfway point of the third period. Soon after, the Vees scored to tie it in a game that seemed destined[citation needed] for overtime. In the final eight and a half minutes of play, the Slammers took three consecutive penalties, in which the Vees scored in the final minute of the final power play with 51 seconds remaining in the game to clinch the Royal Bank Cup. During the regular season, the Vees and Slammers were both nationally ranked #1 teams for most of the season, setting up a very evenly matched final.
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