Christian Hince has found a new home for the upcoming 2020-21 hockey season. Following a year within Manitoba’s Capital Region Junior Hockey League, where he suited up for the St. Malo Warriors, the 6-foot-2, 195-pound forward will play within one of the neighbourhoods of his home city of Winnipeg this year.
Last week, Hince and the St. Boniface Riels agreed to terms on a standard one-year, player agreement, beginning in September, where Hince will join a Riels team looking for retribution following a 2019-20 campaign that saw the team finish in ninth place with a 13-28-5 record, which kept St. Boniface out of the playoff picture.
With a goals-for/game (seventh), goals-against/game (ninth), power play (seventh) and penalty kill (eighth) all near the bottom of the league last season, the offensive Hince should provide the Riels with some firepower up front going forward. In 30 regular season games within the CRJHL, he had 12 goals, 47 points and 28 penalty minutes, before putting up a point-per-game in four postseason contests.
In joining St. Boniface, Hince’s 47 points would rank him near the top of the Riels’ point-production through the 2019-20 season – should that be of comparison. Just Kyle Lang (19 goals and 52 points) had more total points than Hince, while Joe Akadiri also had 21 goals and 47 points on the season.
Although the MMJHL is classified under Hockey Canada’s ruling of ‘Junior Other’ (the only team across Canada with that distinction) and ranked lower in level nationally, Hockey Manitoba considers the MMJHL to be equal to ‘Junior B’, to which the CRJHL is ranked. The ‘Other’ labelling stems mainly from the consideration to which teams in the MMJHL can roster as many 21-year-old players as roster spots allow.
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