Bus. Hotel. Arena. Repeat. Thirteen days with the Seattle Thunderbirds on hockey’s toughest road trip.

By Gare Joyce in Kent, Wash. | Post Falls, Idaho | Lethbridge, Alta. | Warman, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Kenosee Lake, Ochapowace Reserve, Grenfell and Moose Jaw, Sask. | Brandon, Man. | Regina and Swift Current, Sask.

November 5

• 7:15 a.m. parking lot ShoWare Center, Kent, Wash.

thick-chested kid standing a good six-three carries a garment bag, a knapsack, an iPhone, a blanket and a pillow to the back of the bus on the driver’s side. He’s careful not to sling the knapsack over his aching left shoulder. A teammate through these past four seasons follows, takes the two seats on the other side of the aisle, staking his domain and pulling out a deck of cards for countless games of President. Another kid sends texts to friends but knows they might not get back to him right away because the wireless network is spotty back on the reserve. Another is on the phone to a scout. Another to Denmark. A formidable South Asian kid wraps his big mitt around the handle at one end of the crate holding the skate-sharpener and a pale, gaunt kid white-knuckles at the other. The two rookies lift it off the asphalt and load it into the hold of the bus, the former nonchalantly, the latter with close to max effort. A wreck with Minnesota plates pulls up in the lot and the driver slams the door, a big-chinned kid wearing a panicked look beneath the fresh cuts on his face. “I swear I set my alarm,” he pleads to no one in particular. The coach, a former NHL journeyman who fell a couple of seasons short of 1,000 games, gives the last to board a dirty look. Ditto his assistant who, semi-famously, either attacked or was attacked by a gigantic bird.

Players, coaches, a trainer, an equipment manager, a travel secretary and a driver board the bus and take the seats that they claimed back on the first road trip in September—vets in the back, coaches and staff up front.

The name on the team bus announces that these are the Seattle Thunderbirds. They’re neither champions nor doormats. They win as many as they lose, score as many as they give up and cling to the last playoff slot in the WHL’s Western Conference. They’re average as a group, but not nondescript in their pieces. One 17-year-old sitting halfway back on the bus is considered a top-10 pick in the upcoming NHL Draft. One who’s not with the team has already been picked in the first round of the draft, already signed a seven-figure deal.

The Thunderbirds ice one of the younger teams in the league: 10 17-year-olds and three 16-year-olds. Those kids are seeing all aspects of major-junior life for the first time, this road trip included. And this is not an average road trip. It’s a beast unique to the Dub: Sask and Brandon, in the players’ lingo. Thirteen days, 5,600 kilometres, 18 degrees at the outset in verdant Seattle, minus-24 at the chilliest point in Saskatchewan, everyone limited to one small carry-on bag.

The five 19- and 20-year-old veterans aren’t busing and skating into this blindly. They made this trip two seasons ago. They’ve made their peace with travel in the Dub. They take consolation in the fact that teams in years past had it worse—their road odysseys stretched out over as many as nine consecutive games and they lived out of suitcases for more than two weeks.

Seattle’s schedule could be worse, but it also could be shorter. The Thunderbirds’ longest road trip is made longer by a two-day break in the middle when the best of the WHL face off against the touring Russian team. Still, it makes for a hellacious finish: four games in five nights.

November 5
Distance travelled: 0 KM

• 8:30 a.m. bus Departs to Lethbridge, Alta.

The coach who didn’t quite make it to 1,000 NHL games is Steve Konowalchuk. Through his first 10 seasons, it looked like he was bound to hit the landmark. At age 31, in his last full year, he was one shot off a post from 20 goals, and what he says about this road trip applies broadly to the game and his own career. “You can plan things and organize, but some things are going to happen.”

“Kono” sets up his improvised office at the front of the bus. While his kids sleep in their seats or crash on the floor or deal or fold in the back, he watches, re-watches and re-re-watches video of Tuesday night’s game, a win over the Red Deer Rebels.

The assistant coach who had a run-in with the gigantic bird is Matt O’Dette, and he sits across the aisle from the coach. “Odie” has his laptop out and is breaking down the game across the blueline. He looks to the back of the bus to see if there are any defencemen he can call up to his seat for a one-on-one video tutorial. All seem to be asleep. No point waking them up. “If we get Theo back,” O’Dette starts to say. The thought trails off.

The teen who has already signed for millions is Shea Theodore, who wrenched his elbow at Anaheim’s training camp and has been rehabbing with the big club for more than six weeks.

A few weeks back it was “when we get Theo back.” Now it’s a matter of if. They don’t know the Ducks’ plans, don’t want to invest too much hope.

November 6
Distance travelled: 1,048 KM

• 6:30 p.m. Check-in: Lethbridge Lodge
• Bus departs for Warman, Sask.
• 3:30 p.m. practice at Legends centre

The kid who’s in the top 10 is Mathew Barzal. When the bus pulls up in Warman, he bounces out the door with his teammates and all of them bounce off each other as they get their bags out of the hold. Pent-up nervous energy un-penting.

Konowalchuk wants the players to find their legs with a good, hard, full practice, their first in five days. He watches Barzal step onto the ice, try to skate, then limp off. He asks what happened. He’s told that Barzal fell in the dressing room. Goofing around. Shoving. Wrestling. “His knee,” he’s told.

The kid with the big chin is Luke Osterman. A cop’s son from Stillwater, Minn., he’s becoming a fixture in the trainer’s room. After the Red Deer game he had cuts on his face from the first two hockey fights of his life. For that he grabbed a bag of ice. During a drill in Warman he collides with a defenceman whose skate blade cuts right through Osterman’s boot. After practice, Osterman unlaces and sees the blood. He hops up on the trainer’s table that Barzal has just vacated.

The pair are packed off to the ER. Osterman’s four stitches will be done in a few minutes. Barzal’s treatment will take longer. They’ll be late for dinner.

• 6:45 p.m. Check-in: A Hotel that will not be named

The players wait in the lobby for the keys to their rooms. Eighty-nine bucks a night gets you a construction site. Guys in work boots, tool belts and hard hats wander in and out.

November 7
Distance travelled: 1,735 KM

• 8:30 a.m. Breakfast: The Hotel that will not be named

The Thunderbirds are down for breakfast early. The power cut out in the middle of the night and the heat went off. The cold wakes everyone up before dawn.

• 10:30 a.m. Pre-game skate at Legends Centre
• 3:30 p.m. bus Departs for Prince Albert
• 7 p.m. Thunderbirds at Raiders

Barzal is sitting in the arena lounge while his teammates skate in the warm-up. His crutches lean against the table in front of the big screen. A CFL game is on and Riders fans are watching. “Is there any way we can get the NHL on?” he asks, but his request goes unheard.

“They say it might be a few days, a week or two,” he says.

Leg up, leg down, he can’t get comfortable. He’ll stand on crutches the whole game.

Does he know what they were saying about him? He had to hear the comparisons to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who played at the Burnaby Winter Club before him, and those who said he was ahead of the now-Oiler. Does he know everything they’re saying about him? That he’s had things easy in life, that maybe he needed some adversity to knock the attitude off him.

Barzal watches his teammates pick up the slack. Tonight, they can do no wrong. Three of their first five shots on goal find the back of the net, it’s 3–0 before the home team has a scoring chance. Seattle’s third- and fourth-liners have been waiting for two months for bigger minutes. The kid who runs up his phone bill calling home to Denmark is Alexander True, who’s soaking up extra ice time in Barzal’s absence, picking up a goal and going plus-3 in a 6–2 win.

• 11 p.m. Bus departs for Saskatoon

It’s minus-14 with an incalculable wind chill in Prince Albert when True and the other rookies start loading the hold. It’s barely warmer on the bus because the driver didn’t warm it up while the team ate. Barzal hops on his good leg down the aisle and then stretches across two seats, pulling a blanket over himself.

Osterman boards behind Barzal. His pant leg catches something, what it is he’s not sure. He hears a rip: a tear from hip to knee, only dress clothes he packed. His white briefs show through.

November 8
Distance travelled: 2,017 KM

• 12:45 a.m. Drop equipment at Sasktel Centre, Saskatoon
• 1:15 a.m. Return to a hotel that will also remain unnamed
• 8:30 a.m. Breakfast at hotel

Barzal says goodbye to the team. The Thunderbirds’ leading scorer has a ticket to fly out to Vancouver to be assessed by an orthopedic surgeon.

• 7:05 p.m. Thunderbirds at Blades

The kid who sets up the card game on the back of the bus is Evan Wardley, a 20-year-old defenceman from Lethbridge in his fourth year with the team. He’s six-foot-three and 220 lb. and had 151 PIM and nine fighting majors last season. He’s the closest thing the Thunderbirds have to an enforcer, though a scrap with Mackenze Stewart in Prince Albert last night was his first this season. “I’m trying to show that I can play and be physical,” he says. “Hopefully I can land a job with some team out there next season.”

Late in a scoreless first period, Wardley takes a run at one of the Blades forwards and knocks him right into the bench—borderline charge, no call. Twenty seconds later he chases a puck into a corner and a small Saskatoon forward is there a step ahead of him.

A whistle. Wardley shakes his head. He knows. He starts toward the penalty box but the ref points another direction.

• 10:45 p.m. Dinner at a Greek restaurant that will remain unnamed, Saskatoon

“How you do, boys?” the proprietor says, dropping chicken dinners on the tables, sunnily oblivious to his patrons’ gloom. No answer comes, just the sound of silverware scratching plates, asses lifting off seats, feet padding out to the bus.

Konowalchuk looks at out-of-town scores on his iPhone: Theo has picked up two goals in his second straight game on a rehab assignment with Anaheim’s AHL affiliate in Norfolk. After the game the Ducks assign him back to junior—he’ll have one stop before he rejoins the Thunderbirds, game one of the Subway Series in Brandon tomorrow night.

They arrive back at the hotel that remains unnamed at 11:30 p.m.

November 9
Distance travelled: 2,017 KM

• 8:30 a.m. Pick up equipment at Sasktel Centre
• Bus departs for Regina

The heater on the bus fails. Players bury themselves in their blankets to stay warm.

• 1 p.m. Arrive at mall in Regina, lunch on own recognizance

The sting of the loss last night and the cold on the bus reduce chatter to teeth only. When the bus pulls up, the driver parks it on the edge of the lot about 30 yards away from a bantam-aged kid holding a stick and lugging a hockey bag. He’s standing outside a van beside his parents, waiting for a bus to pick him up. He looks ready to cross the lot but can’t figure out how his team is riding in a bus with the Seattle Thunderbirds logo on the side. O’Dette to Coach K: “Who’s that, the player to be named later?”

The players laugh, finally, and watch the poor kid staring at the bus. Then they head out the bus door, each with 12 bucks in meal money handed out by the travel secretary, toward their respective fast-food outlets.

The kid is gone by the time they get back.

• 1:45 p.m. bus Departs for Moose Mountain Provincial Park

The heater is still not operative. Outside, the daytime high climbs to minus-16.

• 4:30 p.m. Check-in: Kenosee Inn, Moose Mountain provincial Park

Wardley sits at a desk in the lobby. Coach K hands him paper and a pen. He knows what he has to do. “I did not attempt to injure the player,” Wardley writes. He pens a letter by hand that Coach K will fax to the league office. It’s a formality required by the league to make teenagers genuinely reflect on their misdeeds. The problem: The league already handed Wardley a seven-game suspension for a hit from behind on Portland’s Nic Petan in October. He was suspended twice in each of the past two seasons. The gavel drops hard on repeat offenders.

Not all of Wardley’s reflections make it to the page. No sense laying everything out. He turned into me. He left himself open. If I had wanted to hurt him, I could have knocked him out of the game. Scratch all that. “I hope the league will take into account the fact that the player came back into the game,” he writes. In fact, he was back out on the power play. Scratch that, too. Coach K proofreads the letter for clarity and tone. “We’ll really be able to use Theo,” He says to Odie. Theo will be back for Moose Jaw.

• 6:30 p.m. Dinner at the inn
• 7:30 p.m. Homework for high-school-aged players
• 8:30 p.m. Team meeting

Players sit at tables in a conference room. They’re expecting a video post-mortem of the loss in Saskatoon. Coach K and O’Dette have reviewed the video. Seattle had more scoring chances than the home team. Not the best effort, not the worst, not their night. The coaches hand out decks of cards and set players up with chips for a poker tournament. No money; amusement purposes only.

November 10
Distance travelled: 2,298 km

• 9:30 a.m. Breakfast
• 10:00 a.m. bus Departs for Chief Denton George Memorial Multiplex, Ochapowace Cree Reserve

The kid who texted his family back home on the reserve is Ethan Bear, a defenceman. He goes to the front of the bus and gives the driver directions, because the GPS doesn’t register a map to the arena. One problem: The driver can’t get the bus into first gear. Any sort of service is hours away. Ditto a tow. Ditto a replacement ride. For five awful minutes the driver eases the gas pedal down but the bus doesn’t move an inch. “Must be the cold overnight,” he says.

Finally, the bus lurches and crawls out to the highway. It stalls again before crossing the Trans-Canada. It sputters as it climbs a steep gravel road deep in the reserve’s interior. The team runs late because of mechanical difficulty and a circuitous route that the bus takes because Bear wants to give his teammates a good look at where he comes from.

• Noon: Arrive at the arena

The trip to the reserve started out as a conversation when the Bear family travelled to Seattle to meet with the Thunderbirds after they drafted Ethan in 2011, a promise that the team would make a visit on an Eastern Conference road swing if circumstances ever allowed it. The Subway Series opened a two-day window for the not-so-slight detour.

Geraldine Bear, Ethan’s mother, an accountant and a leader on the reserve, is taking the coaches on a tour through the gym, the community hall and the band offices, which are housed in a building designed to resemble a teepee adjacent to the arena. “Built it without government money, finished it last spring,” she says. “The old one burned down a few years ago.”

The old one actually detonated. Digging outside the arena messed with the natural-gas line. Just three days before that, Ethan had scored the last goal in the arena’s history: Then age 12, he was playing for the Ochapowace Thunder midgets and the team from the reserve won its first ever championship, beating out Esterhazy in the final. “Ethan was going to have to go somewhere after that,” his mother says. “He was going to go to Notre Dame in Wilcox but then he got a call from a friend who was at the Pursuit of Excellence program in Kelowna, and so he went out there and stayed with him. I drove all the way there once a month when he got homesick. Maybe once every three weeks, all winter.”

• 1:30 p.m. Practice
• 3:30 p.m. Public skate and photos with the team

More than 100 kids and adult Bear family members come out to skate with the team and pose for pictures with Ethan. “I’ve been looking forward to all this but I’m not used to having people around all the time, a hundred of them after every game here [in Saskatchewan],” he says. “I’ve never been in the middle of something like this.”

• 6 p.m. Dinner in community hall

“The bird is a very important animal to us,” Geraldine Bear explains. No bird is served.

An elder leads a prayer.

The menu includes elk stew, moose and neckbones—“neckbones to what” isn’t specified and it doesn’t occur to the players to ask. They pile wild game on their plates and go back for seconds.

• 7:45 p.m. Arrive at Kenosee Inn

The Subway Series game is on the TV in the inn’s restaurant. “They’re not giving Theo a lot of ice time and they don’t want him for the second game tomorrow,” Konowalchuk says. He reads the tea leaves: a bad sign for Theo’s shot at an invite to the world junior tryouts in December.

Russia wins in a long, long shootout. Theo’s deke is turned aside on his chance to win it.

The coaches stick around to watch NHL highlights after the game. At the end of the segment before a commercial, the deskers throw to the gag reel. Animals Gone Wild.

Gales of laughter. “Odie, it’s gotta be there,” Kono says.

Ten: A squirrel runs across an outfield. Five: A seagull flies in formation with a kick-off coverage. Three: Manu Ginobili swats a bat on the court.

“It’s gotta be there,” Kono says.

It’s No. 1. A condor is brought out during the national anthem before a Bakersfield Condors game in the East Coast league. The condor gets spooked. No controlling a bird of prey. It breaks free of its handler, skids across the ice. Finally takes flight, landing in the Condors bench. The players scatter. The coach stands in. O’Dette, the former minor-league tough guy. “Crossing into the States the one time, the customs guy asks me what I do and I tell him that I’m a hockey coach in Bakersfield,” O’Dette says. “And he says, ‘The team with the bird, right?’”

November 11
Distance travelled: 2,748 km

• 9 a.m. bus Departs for Grenfell, SasK.

The driver has reprogrammed the computerized transmission overnight. All good.

• 11:00 a.m. Practice at Grenfell Arena

The team is making another excursion, this one to a town of 1,100 to a practice in the arena where rookie centre Donovan Neuls played house league as an atom, where he used to watch the seniors, the Spitfires, play Milestone, Balcarres and Odessa in the Qu’Appelle Valley Hockey League.

Sign in the arena: “No throwing or shooting of things into the new roof.”

Alexander True, whose Filipino background makes him one of the most unlikely looking Danes you’ll ever cross, stands in the arena lobby and watches farmers wandering through in their work boots and overalls. “When you play when you’re young you think about the places you might go…big cities, arenas, tournaments,” he says. “But you don’t think about places like this. Maybe it’s different for the Canadian kids who saw this before. It’s nothing big for them maybe. No one I know sees these things. None of my friends in Copenhagen sees Seattle, these other places. It’s cool to go to school with the guys on the team and then see where they come from…what the game is like there. My cousin Nikolaj…”

That being Nikolaj Ehlers, Winnipeg’s first-round pick last season.

“…came to Canada last year but went to Quebec. Different travel than the west. But what he tells me makes the decision to come easy. Not just the game. It’s great experience.”

• 1:45 p.m. Lunch at Vickie’s on Highway One

At the coaches’ table the mood is upbeat. They feel they hit the mark in using the two-day break as a mid-season team-building exercise. “Today was probably the best practice we had all year,” Konowalchuk says.

• 2:15 p.m. bus Departs for Moose Jaw

The heater on the bus won’t shut down. The players peel off their sweats, down to undershirts and, later, bare chests. They stick to the seats. The bus is going to have to go in for service in the morning.

• 4:40 p.m. Arrive at Heritage Inn, Moose Jaw

Konowalchuk gets an email from the league offices. Wardley gets five games for the hit in Saskatoon. He’s out for the rest of the trip.

November 12
Distance travelled: 3,053 km

• 8 a.m. Breakfast at the inn
• 8:45 a.m. bus (on loan from the University of Saskatchewan) departs for Mosaic Place
• 9:45 a.m. Game-day skate

Shea Theodore is in the dressing room with his teammates for the first time since September. He’s been where they all hope to go, and he’s been there knowing he’s going back. It’s not a matter of catching up on all those months, stories of what NHL life is like. Thousands of texts have already been exchanged, calls made. It has a seamless feel, like he booked a sick day. A couple of new guys picked up in trade have arrived; there have been a couple of departures.

It’s just, Let’s go to work. Theodore prides himself on a blue-collar work ethic, from his old man who he says “works his bag off” six days a week as a millwright in Aldergrove, B.C. He’ll have no trouble depositing that NHL money at the bank where his mother is an account manager. He’s a hockey-playing dude, nothing more complicated than that.

“Why didn’t you play in the second Subway game?”

“Nah, that would’ve made tonight five [games] in six days,” he says. “Could have done it but it’s better this way.”

Bear moves over to the right D, his natural side. Coach K likes the energy on the ice.

• 1:30 p.m. Lunch at the inn
• 7 p.m. Thunderbirds at Warriors

None of the good vibe from Ochapowace reserve or Grenfell carries over into another winnable game that is lost. Seattle is outworked and outplayed. Theodore tries to do too much; Bear likewise. Theo has played a lot in a week after not playing for a couple of months. Bear isn’t raising his game playing in front of a couple hundred of his friends and family. He’s distracted by it. The final score is 6–2. Never felt close.

• 10:30 p.m. Dinner at Houston’s

Another silent meal quickly eaten, desserts skipped.

November 13
Distance travelled: 3,053 km

• 10 a.m. Practice at Mosaic Place

The thick-chested kid, the one who commands the back seat of the bus, is Justin Hickman. During games Hickman wears the “C.” During this game-day skate at Mosaic Place he wears running shoes and an ice pack on his left shoulder under his T-shirt. Giving a player a day off practice would seem like a privilege reserved for pros in their 30s but at breakfast Coach K told Hickman just to ride the stationary bike while the rest of the team skates.

The coaches saw Hickman come off the ice wincing in the second period against the Warriors. Wincing worse than they had seen him before this season. His shoulder, the gift that keeps on giving, they thought. Hickman sat on the bench and hung his head down so his helmet brushed his knees. It looked like he was done for the game, maybe more than that. Hickman went over the boards the next shift and tested it. Just pain. Nothing worse than that.

Back in August, Hickman thought he might have played his last major-junior game. He landed a free-agent invitation to the Winnipeg Jets’ training camp, a chance to win a spot with their AHL affiliate.

Before heading off to Winnipeg, Hickman wanted to get in a few practices with the Thunderbirds. He went to the net during a drill; while heading southbound, his arm got caught in northbound traffic. All the connective tissue in his shoulder tore as if perforated and his ticket to the Jets’ camp was cancelled.

He came back to Seattle. Surgery could be postponed until after the season. “The doctors said if I can stand the pain I can keep playing,” he says as he drags the bike out to the bench so that he can watch practice while he pedals. “I can’t do any damage to it. There’s nothing in there that hasn’t been torn already. A lot of times it isn’t a hit that sets it off. It can just be reaching for something, getting in a funny position. It’s just pain.”

Konowalchuk leans up against the boards in front of Hickman. He had a shoulder, too. Had to get someone to strap him into a brace and unstrap him after games just like Hickman. Played through it as long as he could. Had to miss a season with surgery because it would pop out while he was asleep. Missed a shot at the U.S. Olympic team that year. Not the reason why he didn’t make it to 1,000, though. No, doctors found he and his brother had a congenital heart condition. It was treatable but the game was over. “Sometimes it’s not the pain,” Konowalchuk says.

• 11:30 a.m. repaired bus Departs Mosaic place for Brandon, man.
• 5 p.m. Check-in at Canada Inn, Brandon
• 7:30 p.m. Shake It Tour, Great Western Roadhouse

The players and coaches don’t go to the country and western concert in the great hall attached to the Canada Inn, but everyone hears it play into the wee hours. The players on the second and third floors sleep through it, though it keeps up the GM and coaches on the 10th.

November 14
Distance travelled: 3,486 km

• 8:30 a.m. Breakfast at the Canada Inn, Brandon

The kid who was on the phone to the scout is Keegan Kolesar. More than he’ll admit, Kolesar is bothered by the fact that he seems to be going unnoticed in his NHL draft year. He was a first-rounder in the WHL bantam draft in 2011. He stuck with Seattle at 16 all last season, big enough at 210 lb., and sound enough defensively to line up against 19- and 20-year-olds. He’s on pace for 25 goals through the first couple of months of the season yet he seems to be off NHL Central Scouting Service’s radar. This fall, CSS didn’t rank Kolesar as even a C player, the lowest designation for projected fourth-, fifth- and sixth-rounders. Where’s the love?

Kolesar is on the phone to that scout again, the scout being his father, Charles Peterson, who works for the St. Louis Cardinals. Kolesar grew up in Winnipeg and his father is based there but this day he’s on the road, an assignment in Mexico. Peterson would never claim to know hockey and still wishes his son had stuck to football, but he offers some professional advice. “Don’t worry about the blogs and the rankings,” he says. “You’re not who they say you are. The game tells you who you are.” His usual message.

• 7:30 p.m. Thunderbirds at Wheat Kings

More than a dozen scouts are in the stands in Brandon. The Wheat Kings have prospects up and down the lineup. For road teams it’s a nice showcase opportunity, play your best against the best. Then again, it’s a tough place to play. The home team gets road teams at their weariest. Brandon hasn’t lost at home all season.

It’s the closest thing to a home-away-from-home game for Kolesar. Though his father couldn’t make it, friends from his old high school made the two-hour drive. They know Kolesar has a mission: to balance the books with a rival on the Wheat Kings, Jesse Gabrielle, a guy he played against going back, a guy CSS is projecting as a second- or third-rounder. Kolesar is not a fan but he won’t get into their history. “We’ll go,” Kolesar says.

In the warm-ups Kolesar seems preoccupied. Later, he’ll admit that he was “a nervous wreck…couldn’t even put a puck on net.”

The game strays from the predicted course early, however. Seattle jumps out to a 3–1 lead in the first period. Theodore puts break-out passes on the tape, lasers that stretch through traffic before the Wheat Kings can establish a forecheck. He’s found his game after time away from major junior. And Kolesar plays a hard game all through the first, picks up an assist on the third goal. In the second he sees his chance, Gabrielle passing in traffic. To get his attention he pokes him with a stick in the gut. Gloves drop, fists fly and Kolesar does all the damage. By the end of the game it’s 6–4 Seattle and Kolesar gets a goal, two assists, a fighting major, a double-minor for spearing, immense satisfaction and somebody’s attention.

• 11 p.m. bus Departs for Regina

November 15
Distance travelled: 3,852 km

• 3:00 a.m. Drop equipment at Brandt Centre in Regina
• 3:30 a.m. Check in at Ramada Inn

The players sleepwalk into the lobby as silently as they would enter a late-night dinner after a loss. Fatigue is a party-killer.

• 8:15 a.m. Breakfast at the hotel

The players stumble into the hotel restaurant. “Where are we again?” Hickman asks, possibly seriously.

• 7 p.m. Thunderbirds at Pats

Another winnable game on paper, another flat line, just like in Saskatoon and Moose Jaw. The Thunderbirds are outplayed for most of the first period but get a goal against play, a loopy 40-foot wrist shot by Osterman through a screen. That’s as good as it gets. The young players are weary, a step slower in the second period, another step in the third when the Pats rally for a pair. Regina gets a too-many-men penalty with 90 seconds to go but that’s the point where the Thunderbirds could use Barzal on the halfboards. Then again, everyone is so beat that passes miss. Any T-bird has a better chance winning the 50-50 draw than a 50-50 puck when it matters. Final: Home 2, Visitors 1 too few.

• 10:15 p.m. bus Departs for Swift Current

November 16
Distance travelled: 4,098 km

• 12:45 a.m. Unload equipment at Credit Union iPlex, Swift Current
• 1:05 a.m. Check-in at Best Western
• 4 p.m. Thunderbirds at Broncos

It’s a half-filled arena and the fans take the prime available seats and standing room spots nearest centre ice. The seats below the dots are mostly unoccupied. The two rookies who have been lugging the skate-sharpener the whole trip are Sahvan Khaira and Nick Holowko. Moving the hardware is the only action they’ll see today. Healthy scratches, Khaira and Holowko sit next to each other rather than spreading out in the four open rows around them. They’ve known each other since they were nine years old, when their older brothers played on the same team in Surrey, B.C. They’d duck out of the arena and play lacrosse.

Here they’ve been given an iPad to track shifts and ice time for the staff. Khaira does the spotting, Holowko the data entry.

The last time they punch in a shift for Osterman is early in the second period. Osterman takes on Ayrton Nikkel, spotting the Broncos’ tough guy two years, two inches and experience earned in 35 previous WHL fights. Eats a couple of right hands, body shots, goes to his knees, gets up, gets broken up and gets tossed.

The game follows the same course as the Regina match: An early goal against play, this one by Bear, stakes Seattle to a 1–0 lead, but the home team comes on as the road takes its toll on the Thunderbirds: two third-period goals for the Broncos and no answer back. The video breakdown will show an even split on scoring chances, six apiece. The video will also show what the stats can’t measure: the sand in a kid’s legs at the tail end of a three in three, especially when the third game is an afternoon puck drop. Especially when you’ve been living out of an overnight bag with one suit and one sweatsuit for 12 days.

Khaira and Holowko hand over the iPad to O’Dette at the end of the game and then head to the loading docks where the bus is parked. They load the skate-sharpener and stick bags and all the rest.

The bus fills exactly as it did in Seattle. Each takes his place wordlessly. The one with an ice bag on his shoulder under his sweatshirt settles into the back seat. The one who had to write a letter and helplessly watch the last four games sits across from him. For them, it’s Never again. The kid from the reserve says goodbye to his family and forces a smile beside the bus. For him, it’s It’ll be better two years from now. The kids at either end of the skate-sharpener share adjacent seats and one thought: Next time we play and we get our own seats. All of them will sleep for 10 of the next 16 hours on the bus and speak above a whisper only when they hand their passports to the customs officer, presumably one who saw the condor video, too.

The kid who has been ranked in the top 10 of this draft class will have surgery on his knee and be out of the lineup until January. The one who played in the Subway Series will be invited by Hockey Canada to its world junior evaluation camp. The kid who calls home to Copenhagen will get his own invitation to play in the under-20s. The scout’s son will find his name in the ranks of B players when NHL CSS releases its next set of rankings. And the bus, nearing its 300,000th mile, will be retired from service, roadworthy becoming road weary.

Photo credits: Opener: Steve Hiscock. All other photos by Gare Joyce.