Thunder start 3-week, 4,300-mile road trip

GLENS FALLS, N.Y. » Eleven games, nine cities, 22 days, 4,316 miles .... priceless!

Thunder players forced to make this dizzying three-week bus trip would no doubt love to hip- check ECHL schedulemakers to the far reaches of the hockey universe.

But they’ve got games to play, starting Friday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, before going to Cincinnati and continuing on halfway across America to Iowa.

From there, the Thunder head north to Michigan and across the border to Ontario; then come back down to Wheeling, W.Va. and Norfolk, Va.

However, the single-longest leg of the trip is still to come — a 610-mile, 10-1/2-hour jaunt to Manchester, N.H.

Then it’s down to Reading, Pa., before landing back in Glens Falls on Saturday, Nov. 25 — their only home game of the month.

“It’s crazy,” said rookie forward Tim Harrison, a Colgate University product. “I’m just going to let the bus take me wherever I’ve got to be going. In college, we would only play Friday and Saturday and then go back to school. I think the longest trip was Dartmouth.”

By comparison, this is minor league hockey’s version of a moon shot.

The ECHL schedule definitely hasn’t been kind to Adirondack, at least not for the first

two months of the season. Twice already, the Thunder have had to play 4 p.m. Sunday games at Reading, after playing Saturday night in Glens Falls and catching a few winks during a fivehour ride to Pennsylvania.

This was the case last weekend, resulting in a 9- 4 loss, as the Thunder were playing their third contest in less than 48 hours. Quite simply, they ran out of gas.

Despite such adversity, the team heads into their grueling trip with a 3- 3-1 record, only two points out of first place.

While looking for wins, Coach Brad Tapper also wants the Thunder to gel as a unit during their time away on the road.

“It’s a good time for guys to get to know each other more and do some real team bonding,” he said.

Only threeweeks into the season, the Thunder have made more than a dozen roster moves, the result of injuries and players called up to the AHL.

Aside from the travel, this is one of the biggest differences between college and pro hockey, Harrison said.

“Guys are here one day and gone the next,” he said. “You’ve got to roll with it.”

“When we get new guys they seem to fit right in,” said rookie forward Stephen Johnson, who previously skated for SUNY Oswego.

Both players say it’s the product of good team leadership and a culture of camaraderie.

“The older guys have really been great helping me out, things like giving little pointers in practice,” Harrison said.

Originally from Duxbury, Mass., near Plymouth, he was drafted by the Calgary Flames out of prep school, but opted for Colgate instead. “In college, that was always the goal, to get an education and turn pro,” he said. “This opportunity is awesome.”