Great (long) read about life in the ECHL in The Athletic (no subscription required for this one).
In one: My four wild days trapped in minor-league hell with...
In one: My four wild days trapped in minor-league hell with...
“It’s a mindset. If you embrace it and know what you’re in for and take things with a grain of salt, you can do it. If you focus on the little things that could be better or could be different, it’ll eat you. We’re not making millions, and we don’t have resources, but you’re playing hockey.
“Whenever I have a day like that where it’s like ‘Man, what am I doing?’ I think, well I’m doing what I’ve been doing since I’m five years old and I have a lot of friends who are working 9-to-5 jobs, they get maybe their two weeks’ vacation and that’s it. I could be doing something else that I really don’t enjoy.”
The Beast wanted to stay at the host hotel, the DoubleTree by Hilton near the rink, but they couldn’t afford the $176 cost for each of their 14 rooms. Instead, they stay at the Crowne Plaza, which is near the city outskirts.
By the time the bus pulls into the hotel, all the nearby restaurants are closed. Only the Applebee’s around the corner, which was set to close in minutes, at 10 p.m., is still open and able to take more than a dozen last-call orders.
Two years earlier, at the same hotel, the city was dumped with 36 inches of snow in 24 hours and the Beast was stranded for five days. Eventually, the hotel ran out of food. They gave away free alcohol while they waited for the military to make a trip to Walmart.
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