Dan Nimick will finally get onto the pitch with the Vancouver Whitecaps’ first team.
But he’ll be playing against them.
Back in December, 2022, the Hammers’ versatile centre-back was coming off an all-star college career at Western Michigan and was chosen in the second round (42nd overall) by the Whitecaps in the MLS SuperDraft. But during training camp he was assigned to their second squad, which played in a much lower league.
So he left, signed instead with the CPL’s Halifax Wanderers (FC) and after two years came west to Hamilton to join the brick wall which doubles as the Forge rearguard.
After Forge eliminated CF Montréal in last week’s second leg of the Canadian Championship quarter-finals, a random draw matched them against the Whitecaps, the lone surviving MLS team in the national title tournament. Game one will be Wednesday, Aug. 13, at Hamilton Stadium, with the away leg at BC Place in September. The Whitecaps attackers will be seeing a lot of Nimick, and vice-versa.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Nimick said. “I guess it’s a full-circle moment for me. Maybe it’ll be good to get one up on them and prove what they missed out on. But I haven’t really considered it. It’s been more about getting the result and making the final and trying to be the first CPL team to hoist the trophy.
“When I was drafted to the Whitecaps and they offered a second-team deal, I wanted to pursue first-team football. I spoke to a couple of teams in the CPL—given that I had a Canadian passport, so was a domestic for CPL teams—and speaking to Patrice Gheisar (coach in Halifax), it seemed like the best fit at the time and I was happy with my two years there for sure.”
But, he emphasises, the best fit at this time is the Forge. When his contract was up on the east coast last spring, he came to the four-time league champions, for a variety of reasons. One was a series of conversations with Hamilton head coach Bobby Smyrniotis, another was being on the outside looking in as Forge continued to make the CPL finals and venture onto “the bigger stages, playing in Concacaf and getting results against MLS sides.”
“It’s an organization that’s a dream to be a part of for a Canadian soccer player and I just look to keep building on that foundation and enjoy the play style.”
“It’s been everything I could have thought when signing here; it’s been even more, to be honest. I think how the season’s going—being undefeated to this point is incredible—and getting the result in the Canadian championships is amazing.”
As the team solidified, and gradually heeded Smyrniotis’s challenge for more defence from the front side and more attack from the back end, it was reflected in Nimick, who plays a strong two-way style, being rewarded with the CPL’s Player of the Month for June.
The club had three wins and a draw in their four games, moved several places up the table, scored the goals they were missing earlier and had a couple of clean sheets.
Nimick, who’s played every minute since he got here, had a penalty-kick goal and two assists during the month, often probed the middle with runs from the back third to the front third, and teamed with Malik Olowabi-Belewu, Rezart Rama, Marko Jevremović and Alex Achinioti-Jönsson in the stout backline rotation.
“I think it’s exciting, for sure,” Nimick said of being selected the league’s best player of the month. “It’s always good to get recognition but there’s a lot of guys on the team who had great months and I think it could have gone to anyone on the team. So I think it’s more of a reflection of how well the team’s been playing over the past month and how we’re really starting to find our groove.
“Getting used to each is part of it, for sure. We were able to keep a good core but there’s a lot of additions so I think figuring out how each player can gel and fit into the system that Bobby likes to install, we’ve started to click more over the past few games.”
Although Nimick qualifies as a Canadian because he was born in Goose Bay, Newfoundland‑Labrador when his father was stationed there with England’s Royal Air Force, he had moved with his family to Yorkshire before he was a year old. His mother is from England, his father from Northern Ireland and Nimick began playing youth soccer there, eventually moving to Leeds’ academy at the age of eight and remaining there for eight years before playing for Harrogate Town, the senior team of the town he grew up in.
Through an agency which connects British players with U.S. college opportunities, Nimick crossed the Atlantic at the age of 19 on a scholarship to Western Michigan where he studied biomedical sciences.
“It seemed like a great opportunity to continue with some academic work while also pursuing a career in professional soccer,” he said. “The degree is a baseline for going into more detailed studies in the medical field. I was thinking about being a doctor and then I got two years into the degree and I realised I could not do another four years of school so that quickly went out the window. It’s always nice to have the degree as something to fall back on, or hopefully not, as long as the soccer keeps going well.”
Nimick describes U.S. college soccer, a major pipeline to the MLS and other pro leagues, as “a very unique sport. It’s almost unrecognizable to the professional game here in Canada and definitely very different from playing in England. There’s a few different rules: there’s the golden-goal overtime, and there are unlimited substitutions. That makes the college game a lot more about just running and intensity and athleticism whereas I think in England, and definitely here in Canada, it’s a lot more tactical. Teams like to build up and keep the ball a bit more instead of just focusing so much on the energy and the running.”
At Western Michigan, Nimick made the all‑conference tournament team as a freshman holding midfielder, then switched to centre‑back as a sophomore and made the all‑star team of the Mid‑American Conference. After a second‑team all‑star berth in his junior season, he closed his college career with a second MAC all‑star nod and was named the league’s Player of the Year. He scored eight goals, including five game-winners. And he emerged as a reliable penalty‑kicker which he has carried into the pros.
That all led to his draft by the Whitecaps, and subsequent rejection of their desire to send him to their second side which plays in MLS Next Pro, a development league in the third tier of American soccer.
He’ll take the first tier of Canadian soccer—where, after a very entertaining 1‑1 draw in Ottawa, Hamilton is undefeated in 14 league games and 17 straight overall—and the chance to play against those very same Whitecaps next month.