After two years with the Halifax Wanderers, Dan Nimick decided this winter that the time had come for a new chapter in his professional career.

The 24-year-old defender has opted to take his talents to Hamilton, as Forge FC revealed on Tuesday they’ve signed Nimick to bolster their squad ahead of the Concacaf Champions Cup.

“After last season I felt like I was ready for a new challenge — ready to learn in a new environment,” Nimick told CanPL.ca this week. “When you’re talking about Canadian football, if there’s one environment you really want to learn in that’s probably Forge, so I thought it was a great opportunity for me to develop as a player, learn from new coaching staff and new teammates.”

Nimick has already joined his new team down in Mexico as the club continues preseason training, and it seems he’s already fitting in well. The sight of him in Forge training gear is a strange one, but once he gets into a match with the Hammers he’ll surely not look out of place.

Last season, Nimick finished third among CPL centre-backs in passes into the final third (181) as well as third in successful long passes (123), also ranking sixth in total successful passes among central defenders (1,036). The year before that, he led all CPL defenders in the latter category.

Considering the way Forge have traditionally played under Bobby Smyrniotis, a centre-back with Nimick’s progressive skillset is almost an archetypal player for the team’s tactical identity.

“I had some good conversations with Bobby,” Nimick said. “He just talked about how he liked me as a player, he could see how I fit into Forge’s style of play. I’m a centre-back who likes to get on the ball and make passes, and Forge is obviously a team that plays a style that suits me.”

Also worth noting is Nimick’s unique ability to contribute on the scoresheet as a defender. He has 14 career goals in the CPL over two seasons, which makes him the third-highest-scoring defender in league history, with far fewer games played than either Daan Klomp or Amer Didic. For Forge, no defender has ever collected more than six CPL goals in their entire career with the club — Nimick has at least six each season.

The vast majority of Nimick’s goals have come from the penalty spot; his ability to convert a spot kick was honed in his college days, and he took on the responsibility with Halifax — once famously scoring a 100th-minute penalty to beat Forge at the Wanderers Grounds.

Some penalty kick help certainly wouldn’t go amiss at Forge; over the history of the CPL, they have the third-worst penalty conversion rate at 71.4 per cent, and over the past two seasons they’ve buried just half of them.

Of course, Nimick insists he’s leaving the decision-making to Smyrniotis on who has the penalty duties at Forge, but if he does get the job, he could keep adding goals to his ledger.

All that said, this has been an off-season of reflection for Nimick, who had a disappointing 2024 campaign in Halifax after a debut season in 2023 where he was nominated for Defender of the Year. He was charged with three own goals in 2024 and conceded a penalty kick. The peak of his frustrations came in September, when he was sent off for two first-half yellow cards at Pacific, served his one-match suspension, and then got sent off again in his first game back.

After finishing third in 2023, the Wanderers were the first team eliminated from playoff contention in 2024.

Nimick explained that he certainly learned a lot over his first two years as a professional, but that he probably learned more in his second, more frustrating year than in the first.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking over some of those moments that happened last year,” he said, candidly. “Sometimes you can’t get to every ball as a centre-back, you can’t make every tackle, you can’t win every ball. I think I wanted to do that for the team in Halifax, and I wanted to do that for myself; I wanted to win every ball and clear every cross, but sometimes you have to weigh the risk versus the reward. That’s what I can learn, I can improve on that decision-making in those moments, and when the risk outweighs the reward of a certain tackle or a certain action.”

Those errors are a part of Nimick’s game that he’ll have to iron out in order to become the top-level defender he wants to be at Forge. He’s got ambition to win trophies in Hamilton, to compete at a high level in Concacaf and the Canadian Championship, and to get himself back on the radar for the Canadian men’s national team.

Of course, Nimick harbours a lot of affection for his time in Nova Scotia. He was the root of a handful of unforgettable moments with that club, and he says he’ll always be grateful for the way he was welcomed in Halifax.

“I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better first two years as a professional,” he said. “The environment of the club in Halifax is incredible, the atmosphere in the stadium, the way you’re welcomed in the stadium is amazing”

Nimick added: “Nothing but fond memories of my time at Halifax, and I’m excited now to start a new chapter at Forge.”

The next time Nimick is at the Wanderers Grounds he’ll be in enemy colours. Just how warmly he’ll be welcomed back remains to be seen, but there’s no denying he was a massive part of the story of Halifax’s past two seasons.

Now, however, that new chapter begins, with arguably the hardest test of Nimick’s career to date. He and Forge will take on Liga MX opposition in February, when they face CF Monterrey in the Concacaf Champions Cup.