The Admirals lineage traces back to the Henry Carr Crusaders. Like the Toronto St. Michael's Majors and St. Michael's Buzzers, the Crusaders were a secondary school based junior hockey team. The team's affiliation was with the Father Henry Carr Secondary School of the Toronto Catholic District School Board. In 1980, they took their high school team and joined the Metro Junior "B" Hockey League, where they played until 1991, even after the league left the Ontario Hockey Association in 1989. The team was famous for its first undefeated Metro season in 1983 (34–0–2), when they won the All-Ontario Jr. B Championship, the Sutherland Cup. After five rounds of playoffs competing for the Sutherland Cup, the Crusaders accumulated 54 wins, 2 losses, 2 ties, and 2 losses in overtime in 60 regulation games.
In 1991, when the Metro league declared itself Junior "A" and they transferred the franchise to the Weston Dukes. Henry Carr used to field a team at the high school hockey level as well.
Thornhill
In 1993, the Weston Dukes organization folded and their franchise was moved to Thornhill and became the Thornhill Islanders. In 1997, they were renamed the Thornhill Rattlers until 2004, when they assumed the Thunderbirds name.
After playing in multiple league over many years, even competing for the 2001 Royal Bank Cup. In summer 2006, the players of the team started to get let go or traded for cash to any interested team. The team was for sale for the better part of six months, but with no serious offers.[citation needed]
Villanova Knights
In 2007, local businessman David Arsenault (governor and owner) along with St. Thomas of Villanova College revived the team bringing it back into the OPJHL under the Villanova College name.
The original Orangeville Flyers were disbanded by the league in spring 2011. On April 14, 2011, ten days after the Flyers folded, the OJHL and the Villanova Knights announced that they were moving to Orangeville under the name Orangeville Flyers.[2]
Brampton Admirals
On June 18, 2018, team president David Arsenault, citing poor local support in Orangeville and an improved development model by having both his junior "A" and Junior "B" teams playing in the same arena, relocated and rebranded the Orangeville Flyers as the Brampton Admirals.[3] In 2021 the team relocated to Caledon, Ontario and were renamed the Caledon Admirals.[4] They currently play out of the Mayfield Recreation Centre.[4]