Justice Christensen as he drops off the first donation of juice to the Prince Albert SPCA earlier this season. (Prince Albert Raiders)

By Nick Nielsen

Leading on and off the ice

Raiders captain Christensen talks community involvement

Jan 22, 2025 | 4:42 PM

When you ask the Prince Albert Raiders organization what their goal is in developing the players that come to our city, you’ll get an answer along the lines of, ‘we don’t just want to develop good hockey players, we want to develop good people’. That’s a belief that is shared by Raiders captain Justice Christensen who has helped lead the way for the Raiders when it comes to giving back.

The Raiders were in Birch Hills earlier this week where they hosted a practice of their own before they welcome kids from the local school to play with them and sign some autographs. While Christensen now calls Red Deer his home, he grew up in the nearby hamlet of Winfield about an hour north, so getting to small town rinks means all that much more to him.

“It’s a lot of fun. I grew up in a smaller town, playing in a small barn similar to Birch Hill, so that was fun for me to kind of get back out there, and I know the kids love it when we’re around. That part of it was super awesome. I like being in the community, it means a lot.”

For Christensen, being an active member of the community is an important thing, especially considering the position the he’s in. Christensen is well aware that he wouldn’t be able to chase his hockey dreams here in Prince Albert if it wasn’t for the fans that come and watch his games, and he feels it’s important to give back when he can.

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“I love being in the community and I believe if we’re out there giving back to people and going to the food bank and donating tickets to some some organizations and stuff like that, then it’s just going to bring more fans into the rink, which is where we love to play and the fans are always great. So I believe we kind of give to them and they give back to us.”

It isn’t the only initiative that Christensen has been involved in so far this year. The three-year Raider defenceman has an extra incentive to block shots this year as for every block he makes this season, the Raiders are donating two litres of juice to the Prince Albert Food Bank.

Christensen said the idea came from his mom and his family when he was at home during the offseason. From there, he chatted with Raiders Director of Business Operations Mike Scissons to see how they could make that happen, and the rest is history.

“I just wanted to give back to the community and find something that worked for me, and obviously my nickname being ‘Juice’, I just thought it was kind of fitting that I donated some juice boxes, and then just kind of went with that and I like to block shots and that was the way that I could get a lot of juice, so that’s what we went with.”

While the WHL doesn’t have shots blocked as one of the stats they track on their website, ‘Juice’ dropped off an initial donation of 68 litres of juice from the first 20 games of the year, or 34 blocked shots. As for where the total sits now, he believes he’s somewhere around the 90 shots blocked mark, or about 180 litres of juice.

Another recent fundraiser the Raiders were a part of that Christensen was happy to see is the recent ‘Pack the Pickup’ game the Raiders hosted, collecting pet food and supplies from Raiders fans entering the game to donate to the Prince Albert SPCA. Christensen got involved with the pregame promotion of the event where he got to bring the Raiders’ portion of the donation to the SPCA and meet the animals they were helping out.

“I love that when I was able to go out to the SPCA and meet with some dogs and play with them and stuff. That was really fun. I have two dogs myself at home, so that ones like pretty close to me, and that was the first time we’ve been able to do a program like that for the SPCA and get them some some dog food and anything else that’ll help them out, so yeah, that one was pretty special for me.”