Victoria Golden Tide rebrand as Collegiate Cats starting this fall

Published 8:30 am Friday, February 20, 2026

Collegiate baseball in Victoria is ready to turn the page.

This fall, the Victoria Golden Tide will become the Victoria Collegiate Cats, linking the team more closely with its parent club, the Victoria HarbourCats.

The team will remain the Golden Tide for the upcoming spring season, which begins in March, before the new identity takes effect in the fall.

“In hindsight, this should have been the naming from the beginning,” said Jim Swanson, managing partner of the group that owns the Collegiate Cats and Victoria HarbourCats. “Moving forward, the players, coaches, and new recruits are excited for the transition.”

The program features student-athletes from the University of Victoria and Camosun College and competes in the Canadian College Baseball Conference. The team began in the fall of 2021 as the Victoria Golden Tide.

Victoria finished the 2025 season with a 14-17 record, placing fifth in the eight-team CCBC. Along with Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, the Golden Tide are one of two Island-based clubs, while the remaining seven teams, including newly minted expansion club UBC, stretch from Vancouver to Alberta.

For Swanson, the rebrand is a natural next step.

“It just makes sense for many reasons. The program has grown beyond its early challenges and is ready to be fully adopted under the respected HarbourCats name,” he said.

“Among other benefits, so many Golden Tide players have earned summer WCL opportunities through this program, and that can only continue to grow now that the foundation is firmly entrenched in this name.”

Over four seasons, more than 20 Golden Tide alumni have gone on to play for one of the Island’s West Coast League clubs, either the HarbourCats or the Nanaimo NightOwls.

And according to hitting coach Colton O’Brien, the 2026 collegiate roster has the power to add even more names to that list.

“This is the deepest lineup in program history. The offence is dynamic, and we can hurt opponents in so many ways,” he said in a release on CCBC.com.

Victoria will open their 2026 schedule on the road on March 21 before returning home for their opener on March 28 at Royal Athletic Park against the Edmonton Collegiate Riverhawks.