Connor Nickle was a wanted man. Two junior A hockey teams, the Lloydminster Bobcats and Bonnyville Pontiacs, made offers to the flashy forward within a few hours of each other Sunday.
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Nickle decided late Sunday to accept the latter pitch and commit to Bonnyville, which is a half-hour drive from his Cold Lake home. He signed with the Pontiacs after school Monday (April 20).
“Me and my family decided to stay closer to home — because I’m from Cold Lake — and go with Bonnyville,” Nickle said minutes before he signed with the Alberta Junior Hockey League franchise.
“We decided it would be a better suit for the family, and just everyone really. (I’ve been away) since I was 13, so we thought it would be better to stay closer to home and everything.”
Nickle has billeted in Lloydminster for the past four hockey seasons, including the last two years with the U18 AAA Lancers. He just turned 17 in March, so he still has another year of U18 eligibility, but it became apparent during and after the 2025-26 season that the Spokane Chiefs’ WHL prospect is ready to step into junior hockey next fall.
It appeared Nickle would be headed to the Bobcats, with whom he practised during the past winter and dressed for one regular-season game as an affiliate. Although he didn’t play in any of Lloyd’s four playoff games, Nickle was part of the post-season roster, with his own stall in the team’s Hub dressing room.
But another variation of the Bonnyville-Lloydminster rivalry played out in the off-season as Nickle attended AJHL prospects camps for the Pontiacs and Bobcats, respectively, on the past two weekends.
During his camp exit meeting with Bobcats assistant general manager Andrew Gilbert at about noontime Sunday, Nickle was told that Lloydminster wanted to sign him. When he returned home just before suppertime, Nickle received a phone call from Pontiacs coach Chad Mercier, showing interest in signing Nickle as well.
“That’s basically when it all went down,” said Nickle, who had multiple discussions with his parents during the decision-making process.
“It feels really good (to have it done). I was kind of wondering what was going to happen with next year, if I was going to push to make junior or play (U18) AAA again. But yeah, now this is like a relief for me, and I’ll still get back to business (training).”
Along with his speed, skill and hockey IQ, Nickle’s considerable size has made him that much more of an attractive prospect for junior teams. With help from his mom’s home-cooking, he’s added eight pounds in the past month and now checks in at six-foot-two and 200 pounds.
“I think it’s just my size now,” Nickle said about his attributes. “I gained a lot of weight and muscle and can’t be pushed off the puck easily. Honestly, it’s just the IQ and the passionate love I have for the game.”
That passion steered the then 13-year-old Nickle down the road to join the U14 Lloydminster Athletics. He went on to play with the U15 AAA Lancers the next season, after which he made the big jump to U18 AAA.
While he made strides on the ice, Nickle said it was sometimes difficult off the ice as he struggled with homesickness in those early years, missing hugs from or chats with his mother and father. But he grew up fast and, this past season, it seemed natural and comfortable living away from home, he said.
“The first two years were a little bit rough. Then, last year, at moments I was, like, ‘I kind of want to go home,’ and feeling a little bit sick to my stomach. But this year, I haven’t felt that, at all. It’s been all natural to me now.”
Of course, his parents often made road trips to Lloyd to follow Nickle’s hockey with his Border City teams. Now, they’ll be able to watch their son, and the Pontiacs, not far from home.
“Yeah, from my house to the rink, it’s no more than 30 minutes away,” said Nickle, who acquired his driver’s licence the week before his Bonnyville signing. “It makes me feel good. And it’s close to home for my dad, who has a job about five minutes out of Bonnyville. So, he’ll be right there, too.
“I’ll have a car. I could drive home for supper a couple of nights a week, hopefully, and spend a little more time with family.”
Nickle will see familiar faces with the Pontiacs, whose roster includes his close buddy Gavin Harrison of Cold Lake and the Bonnyville boys — Ryder Naim, Rylan Emigh and Austin Wentz. Nickle knows all of them from summer skates and from being teammates with most of them, including Naim with the U18 AAA Lancers in the 2024-25 season.
Most of all, Nickle has a childhood connection with Harrison — the AJHL’s rookie of the year — that goes beyond sharing their March 2, 2009, birthdate. Harrison is a strong candidate to play in the WHL next season with the Swift Current Broncos.
“I personally hope he makes Swift, because he deserves it, but I also want him to stay back because he’s one heckuva player and my good friend,” Nickle said. “We started our first year (of minor hockey) together, and then once it got to our first year of hitting, he went to NAX and that’s when I went to the Athletics.”
The Pontiacs also have a local coach in Mercier, who returned to Bonnyville’s junior A bench in the past year.
When asked what swayed him to sign with the Pontiacs, and not the Bobcats, Nickle mentioned Mercier’s presence as a contributing factor in his decision.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “(The idea) just popped up one day and my dad was, like, ‘What do you think of Bonnyville?’ I’m, like, ‘Yeah, it’s close to home, sounds good.’
“The new coach, Chad Mercier, we’ve known him for a bit, and we’ve respected him as a coach. We think he’s a really good coach.
“No, I haven’t once played for him, but I’ve always heard good things. I kind of wanted to try it out this year and see how it is.”
At the same time, he’ll miss his hockey buddies in Lloydminster, especially the veteran Lancers with whom he played for back-to-back seasons and rookies like fellow Spokane prospects Brody Sunderland and Josh Frazer. Sunderland participated in the latest Bobcats’ prospects camp, while Frazer skated in the Pontiacs’ spring camp the previous weekend.
Spokane selected Nickle in the 10th round of the 2024 WHL prospects draft.
He scored 14 goals and 29 points in 35 games with the U18 AAA Lancers this past season, more than doubling his point total from his rookie year.
Nickle and the U17 Lakeland Heat won a provincial lacrosse championship last year, but he’s stepping away from lacrosse this summer to focus on his hockey training.
“We ended off my lacrosse career on a high note,” he said. “It was fun.”
Nickle’s off-season hockey regimen includes training with the father-and-son tandem of ex-pro player Chad Cabana and former Bobcats captain Caden Cabana, now playing university hockey with the Grant MacEwan Griffins.
Along with Nickle and Sunderland, other U18 AAA Lancers at the Bobcats’ camp last weekend were Logan Flewell, Cobin Garnett, Graydon Kvill, Locklin Mitchell and Gavin Pratt.
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