When Arizona Sundogs rookie Joey Sides walked into the Wichita Thunder minor league hockey area in 2009, he smelled manure. It was little marvel: the venue doubled as a house for the native rodeo. However that was nothing in comparison with the stands, which appeared to go virtually straight up. Behind the bench, followers may virtually attain out and seize gamers’ jerseys – they had been that shut. You may hear the whole lot the wild crowd of about 10,000 mentioned. “It felt like mayhem in there,” Sides says. The rabble threw beer at gamers and had been dragged out of the stadium by safety. “I may hear one of many followers yelling at my buddy on the ice, saying, ‘Hey, Jonesy! Combine in a salad, you fats fuck!’ as he chucked a beer at him. It was insane.”
Then there was the time later in his profession when one other staff bought a decommissioned bus for the gamers at a discount. “That factor broke down, like, six occasions on us,” Sides says. It acquired so unhealthy that the gamers agreed that if it confirmed up for a recreation in opposition to Kansas Metropolis, they’d refuse to get on. However their coaches mentioned the staff house owners could be upset by the boycott. So, they acquired on and rode. The bus didn’t have shocks and Sides watched his teammates flying round, hitting their heads on the ceiling, whereas it drove over velocity bumps. Going 75mph, the car then blew a tire and the entire inside started to fill with darkish smoke. It got here to a screeching halt on the freeway. The gamers sat on the aspect of the street so lengthy, ready for a brand new journey, that the offered out recreation in Kansas Metropolis was canceled and the gamers as an alternative celebrated St Patrick’s Day in a Podunk city bar, singing karaoke with locals.
One other time throughout his rookie yr in Arizona, tempers started to flare throughout a recreation. His coach put within the staff’s two 6ft 5in enforcers, who instigated a brawl. “One in all our enforcers was punching a man proper in entrance of me on the bench, smiling and feeding this man proper hooks to the face,” says Sides. “He pops off the child’s helmet, and it falls to my ft and my teammate begins knee-dropping the helmet and flattens it right into a pancake, then chucks it into the penalty field. It was an absolute circus!” One other time, on yet one more staff, considered one of Sides’ assistant coaches tried to choose a combat with a ref, throwing sticks and water bottles at him, taking off his swimsuit coat, ripping his shirt open and yelling, “Let’s fucking go!”
For Sides, who grew up in Solar Valley, Idaho, this was all a part of the life he lived for 15 years till he retired from hockey in 2023. Born in Tucson, Arizona, he all the time cherished the sport. Sides recollects his dad and mom balling up foil for him to hit across the kitchen with a mini hockey stick on his sister’s curler skates. Later, in Idaho, his father constructed an ice rink within the household’s yard that the native fireplace division let him fill with a hearth hose related to a hydrant. The rink turned so fashionable that Wayne Gretzky stopped by just a few occasions whereas vacationing within the resort city through the 1994-95 NHL lockout. “The Nice One” performed with a nine-year-old Sides and his pals, signing sticks and sports activities playing cards. He even stayed over for dinner. “He was probably the most gracious, beneficiant man,” Sides says, nonetheless impressed.
In highschool, he attended Avon Outdated Farms Faculty in Connecticut, the place he and his staff received again to again New England Championships his junior and senior years due to Sides and future NHLers Cam Atkinson and goalie Jonathan Fast. After that, his dream was to play Division I hockey however he didn’t get any faculty scholarship affords forward of commencement. So, Sides performed Division III at Wentworth Institute of Know-how in Boston as an alternative. After Wentworth, Sides acquired a tryout within the American League, which is successfully the NHL’s high farm system.
In his first ever skilled recreation, Sides was ready within the tunnel together with his teammates to hit the ice for warmups. They egged him on, telling him he was the one to guide them out. “Doesn’t the goalie often try this?” he requested. However they mentioned no, it was his first recreation. It was free T-shirt night time, too, and a number of other thousand followers had been within the stands already. When the doorways opened, Sides raced out, however nobody adopted. He was on the market on the different finish of the rink all by himself. Welcome to the league, child. Minor league hockey is filled with pranks. From untying a teammate’s skate and lacing it up backwards to placing rocks into somebody’s hollowed-out hockey follow mess with stability. However that’s the type of stuff Sides loves and remembers. “The relationships you construct with gamers on the groups,” he says. “I’m so grateful for that.”
Camaraderie is vital when younger males are touring by bus for half a season for anyplace between 50 and 72 video games (relying on what league you’re in) and every is making between $550 per week and $60,000 a yr (you probably have a two-way AHL contract). “My rookie yr,” says Sides, “I used to be launched to bank card roulette. That’s the place you all exit to dinner and on the finish of the meal, you set your bank cards in a hat. Then the waitress comes over and one after the other she takes them out. The final one pays for the entire meal. Each time I performed that, I used to be dropping my shit. I used to be so nervous. The invoice would virtually be my complete paycheck! Fortunately, I by no means misplaced.”
Throughout his profession, the skillful Sides performed overseas within the Netherlands, Germany, Scotland (the place he was sponsored by a resort) and Newfoundland together with US cities reminiscent of Tulsa, Fort Collins, Wichita, Studying, Fast Metropolis, Kansas Metropolis, Jacksonville.
“For me,” Sides says, “I had an all-over-the-map type of profession.” Within the Netherlands, for instance, he performed in a city north of Amsterdam and the league featured each indoor and outside rinks – not precisely high notch. “It simply wasn’t on the identical stage as taking part in professional within the States,” Sides says. In most of the smaller areas, although, followers had shut relationships with their groups and Sides would get stopped in grocery shops or on the road to signal autographs. It may even really feel like European soccer, with followers within the area banging drums and going mad for his or her hometown boys.
Sides in now in his late 30s, however says his physique remarkably stays in fine condition – properly, aside from the 5 shoulder surgical procedures he underwent resulting from taking part in accidents. His profession highlights embrace being possibly the primary hockey participant ever to put on a GoPro digicam throughout knowledgeable recreation. Sides, when in Newfoundland, noticed icebergs floating by city (he even made cocktails from them) puffins hanging about and humpback whales swimming off the shore. In Scotland, his staff was .500 and house owners threatened to ship all 15 overseas gamers packing to save cash. However the squad promised enchancment they usually made a historic playoff run. He additionally participated within the first-ever professional hockey recreation at Lake Placid’s area – The Olympic Middle – the place the US famously upset Russia within the 1980 Olympics’ Miracle On Ice. Previous to the sport, he went up into the stands to take all of it in. “I simply sat down and was so grateful for with the ability to have come so far as I had,” Sides says.
For Sides, who solely wished to show he was worthy after beginning his professional profession out of a small Division III college, he made his mark. A prolific goalscorer and speedster on the ice, he additionally discovered himself within the penalty field maybe greater than his coaches (or mom) would have preferred. However minor league hockey could be brutal. Typically you must combat again. “I wish to say I by no means began something,” he says, with fun. “Solely retaliated.”
However in the present day, with these 15 years behind him, he’s proud of what he’s seen and accomplished. Now, he’s shifting, touring from Idaho to Brooklyn to start out a brand new life together with his girlfriend. However what’s most wonderful, he says, is that as he drives cross-country, there are myriad individuals alongside the best way he is aware of. Gamers, teammates, coaches from all of his groups – pals who’d welcome him any time he wanted to crash.
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