There wasn’t much more Hayden Wheddon could have envisioned for his final year of junior hockey.
Stonewall’s Hayden Wheddon captured the MJHL scoring title with 90 points in 57 games this season while leading the Niverville Nighthawks to a first-place finish
Playing on one of the top Junior A clubs in his home province while finishing as the top scorer in the entire Manitoba Junior Hockey League highlighted both the personal and team accomplishments of the 2025-26 season for the 20-year-old from Stonewall.
A left winger for the MJHL’s Niverville Nighthawks, Wheddon scored 36 goals and added 54 assists for 90 points in 57 games during the recently completed regular season.
The totals helped him capture the Mike Ridley Trophy, awarded annually to the league’s top scorer, making him the first Nighthawk to accomplish the feat.
“It’s just a lot of the team kind of thing, too. It goes out to them and my coaches for sure, just pushing me every day to be better and giving me the confidence to play how I want and do what I want, so I think that helped a lot for sure,” said Wheddon.
This season marked his fourth full campaign in junior hockey after joining Niverville full time in 2022-23 as a Grade 12 student. He previously lit it up offensively in U15 and U18 AAA with the Interlake Lightning, which led to him being drafted by both the MJHL and the Western Hockey League in 2020.
After his first junior campaign with Niverville, Wheddon moved on to the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL, where he spent the entirety of the 2023-24 season.
He then returned to Niverville last season, where he began building chemistry with his current centre, Merik Boles, and former minor hockey teammate Adam Vigfusson, who plays right wing on their line.
All three are seniors this season and have formed one of the top-scoring lines in the MJHL. Their success has mirrored that of the team, which finished the regular season with a 51-6-1 record to claim first place.
“A big shoutout goes to Adam Vigfusson and Merik Boles,” said Wheddon. “They’re two very talented players, so it’s not too hard when you’re playing with two guys like that who can see the ice well and play well. My coaches have been pushing me throughout the year and in the off-season, just trying to do what I can to be better for this year and having a good mindset going into every game.”
With Wheddon, Vigfusson and Boles all in their final seasons of eligibility, the trio hopes the coming weeks of playoffs can provide a perfect sendoff before they move on to the next stage of their careers.
They will enter the Turnbull Cup playoffs seeking both the franchise’s first championship and its first playoff series win. Awaiting them in the opening round is a best-of-seven matchup with the Winkler Flyers, the same team that eliminated them last year.
Wheddon said the team has felt strong support from the community all season, with home games regularly drawing crowds of at least 600 fans at the Niverville CRRC.
With the team’s current success, those numbers are expected to climb. Wheddon hopes the group can feed off that energy and deliver an exciting playoff run.
“It’s been lots of fun playing with this group of guys. We have a great team, great coaches and great people around us, whether it be trainers or members of the community. It all helps and contributes. It’s a great spot to be and I’m just grateful for all of it,” he said.
Niverville will host Games 1 and 3, along with potential Games 5 and 7 against Winkler. That home-ice advantage will carry throughout the postseason after the Nighthawks finished first overall.
On home ice, Niverville posted a 25-4 record, second only to the Steinbach Pistons, who went 26-3 at the Southeast Event Centre during the regular season.
Looking ahead to Winkler, Niverville knows it will need to maintain its strong play against a 34-20-2-2 Flyers squad that finished fourth in the MGEU East Division and is a perennial championship contender.
If Niverville learned anything from last year, it’s that Winkler plays a physical style well suited to playoff hockey.
The Nighthawks dropped last year’s series 4-2, with a 3-2 double-overtime loss in Game 6 ending their season.
The clubs met six times this season, with Niverville winning five of those contests.
“They’re a physical team, they’ve been good since the break and I think we’ve been getting better too,” said Wheddon. “At the end of the season we went on a little stretch there with a couple of losses, but I think we found our groove again and we’re back at it. We’ve just got to be physical too and be ready for them to have a big push. We’ve got to stick to our game and what we’ve been doing all year and just keep going with that.”
