He’s won two CanAlta Cups, played at the RBC Cup and is recognized as one of the top defencemen in the SJHL.
Now, Eric Sinclair is a Flin Flon Bomber.
The Bombers acquired Sinclair, 20, from the Melville Millionaires for future considerations in a trade Wednesday.
Sinclair, a native of Kenora, ON, spent the past two seasons with the Melfort Mustangs, winning two consecutive league titles.
Sinclair ended last season with 45 points in 58 games, leading all defencemen in scoring and winning the SJHL’s Best Defenseman award.
“We feel he is the number one defenceman in the league,” said Bomber head coach and general manager Mike Reagan. “He’ll be our number-one defenceman, and he’ll play power-play, penalty-kill and a lot of valuable minutes for us.”
Sinclair was a key member of the Mustangs team that defeated the Bombers in last year’s SJHL final, but Reagan and the Bombers were interested in him long before that.
“I’ve known since the first year that (Melfort) won (in 2015) that this kid was a stud,” said Reagan.
“I watched him a lot after we lost out to Notre Dame (in 2015), I watched them in the finals against Notre Dame and I watched him play in the WCC and the Royal Bank Cup. We knew for a while that he was a special player.”
Sinclair is not likely to be the only player the Bombers acquire.
“There’s going to be more changes coming,” said Reagan. “You don’t trade for a number-one defenceman like this without having other plans in place to improve your hockey club. We thought going into this season we had to bring in one more high-end defenceman. He was a guy we had targeted from the get-go.”
Sinclair is expected to be in the lineup for the Bombers Friday and Saturday against the Kindersley Klippers.
