Fiery buses, beer showers and the smell of manure: life in ice hockey’s minor leagues

Joey Sides’ peripatetic career included stints in Netherlands, Germany and Scotland (where he was sponsored by a hotel). The memories will last a lifetime

When Arizona Sundogs rookie Joey Sides walked into the Wichita Thunder minor league hockey arena in 2009, he smelled manure. It was little wonder: the venue doubled as a home for the local rodeo. But that was nothing compared to the stands, which seemed to go almost straight up. Behind the bench, fans could practically reach out and grab players’ jerseys – they were that close. You could hear everything the wild crowd of about 10,000 said. “It felt like mayhem in there,” Sides says. The rabble threw beer at players and were dragged out of the stadium by security. “I could hear one of the fans yelling at my buddy on the ice, saying, ‘Hey, Jonesy! Mix in a salad, you fat fuck!’ as he chucked a beer at him. It was insane.”

Then there was the time later in his career when another team purchased a decommissioned bus for the players at a bargain. “That thing broke down, like, six times on us,” Sides says. It got so bad that the players agreed that if it showed up for a game against Kansas City, they’d refuse to get on. But their coaches said the team owners would be upset by the boycott. So, they got on and rode. The bus didn’t have shocks and Sides watched his teammates flying around, hitting their heads on the ceiling, while it drove over speed bumps. Going 75mph, the vehicle then blew a tire and the whole interior began to fill with dark smoke. It came to a screeching halt on the highway. The players sat on the side of the road so long, waiting for a new ride, that the sold out game in Kansas City was canceled and the players instead celebrated St Patrick’s Day in a Podunk town bar, singing karaoke with locals.

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