Early years The Wheat Kings were named in honor of the
Brandon Wheat City senior team that participated in the 1904
Stanley Cup Challenge, losing to the
Ottawa Senators. The Wheat Kings team was founded in 1936 as a member of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL), although the team was known as the Elks for a short time in the late 1930s. Playing out of
Wheat City Arena, the team won eight
Turnbull Cup Championships as Manitoba Junior Champions and appeared in the
Memorial Cup finals in
1949 after winning the
Abbott Cup as the Western Canadian junior champion. The 1949 Brandon Wheat Kings were inducted into the
Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame. During the 1950s, the Wheat Kings left the MJHL for a time to play in the Big Six Intermediate Hockey League. Later, in 1964, Brandon left the MJHL again and spent two seasons playing in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League instead. The team then returned to the MJHL for one season before joining the major junior Western Canada Junior Hockey League in 1967.
Western Hockey League The Wheat Kings had a challenging start in the new league—over their first nine seasons, the team posted only two winning records and won only a single playoff series. In 1970, the team moved briefly to
Manex Arena, before moving to the new Keystone Centre in 1973. The same year, the team began operating a farm team in the MJHL, called the
Brandon Travellers, an arrangement that would last until 1980. The Wheat Kings began a short period of success in 1976. Led by the likes of
Brian Propp,
Brad McCrimmon, and
Ray Allison, the team won three straight regular season titles from 1976–77 to 1978–79, advancing to two league finals and capturing their first championship in 1979, defeating the
Portland Winter Hawks in 6 games in the final. The Wheat Kings advanced to the Memorial Cup for the first time since 1949, again to lose in the final, this time in a 2–1 overtime defeat against the
Peterborough Petes in what has been cited as one of the best finals in the tournament's history. Infamously, with the team down three defencemen, McCrimmon played all but two minutes of the Memorial Cup final—he left the ice only to serve a minor penalty. The Wheat Kings 1978–79 campaign set a WHL record for points with 125. At the
1979 National Hockey League draft, ten members of the 1978–79 Wheat Kings were selected, including four in the first round. In the late 1980s, Brad McCrimmon's brother,
Kelly McCrimmon, took over as team manager. Under his guidance, the Wheat Kings again rose to prominence, making three finals appearances in a four-season span between 1994–95 and 1997–98. Despite losing the 1995 final, the team advanced to the Memorial Cup because they lost to the host
Kamloops Blazers; at the tournament, Brandon lost the semi-final 2–1 to the
Detroit Junior Red Wings. Their best result came in 1995–96, when the team, coached by
Bob Lowes and led on the ice by the likes of
Wade Redden and
Peter Schaefer, posted its first 50-win season since 1979, winning the regular season title. The team then lost only three games in the playoffs en route to its second playoff championship. The Wheat Kings thus advanced to a second consecutive Memorial Cup tournament; they again bowed out in the semi-final, losing 4–3 to Peterborough. There, the Wheat Kings lost to the
Windsor Spitfires, who claimed their second straight national title. Brandon would return to the Memorial Cup for a sixth time in 2016 after winning its third
Ed Chynoweth Cup as league champions. However, the 2016 tournament would mark the first time the team failed to advance to at least the semi-final as they dropped three straight games. In a shortened
2020–21 WHL campaign played exclusively in-division and without playoffs—the season was modified due to the
COVID-19 pandemic—Brandon finished atop the East Division with an 18–4–2 record. In 2022, the team hired former player
Marty Murray to be its new coach and manager. == Season-by-season record ==