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Life on the road with ASU hockey

Two members of Sun Devil Hockey describe the road trip experience as student-athletes

Sun Devil hockey players perform calisthenics in the parking lot of a hotel in Boston, Massachusetts while on the road.

Sun Devil hockey players perform calisthenics in the parking lot of a hotel in Boston, Massachusetts while on the road.

When you’re a student-athlete at a Division I school, extensive travel is a part of your college experience.

That’s been the case for ASU hockey, now playing in its first full Division I schedule. ASU is the only Pac-12 school with a DI team, and thus travels often to the east coast for away games.

On Tuesday, senior defenseman Drew Newmeyer and sophomore forward Anthony Croston each discussed what it’s like to go on trips with their teammates from Sun Devil Hockey. One such trip was the grind that spanned two weekends, beginning during the week of Nov. 7, during which the players played four games at the University of New Hampshire, Boston College and Penn State in eight days.

From the airport to the hotel, bad roommates to passport mishaps, here’s what a road trip experience is like with ASU hockey:

*Players were interviewed separately*

What’s the road trip experience like from the start?

Newmeyer: It’s a lot of fun for us for sure. We’ll get to the airport on a Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how far we’re going. And basically, you just spend the entire time with your teammates, roaming around the airport, killing time. You’re on a pretty tight schedule with the itinerary that the coaches hand out with team meals, meetings, practice and all that kind of stuff. But it’s just a lot of fun basically having an excuse to hang out with your buddies for a few days.

Croston: It depends on when we fly out that day. If we fly out in the morning, we normally don’t practice. We will each carpool with our roommates to the airport. If we do have practice that day, we’ll have practice right before we fly out, and we’ll take a bus together from practice to the airport.

When you’re at the airport, what are the coaches doing?

Newmeyer: They keep their distance to an extent, I think. Obviously, when we get there, we’re all together. We kind of all file through as we go as one large group. Once we’re at the gate, most of the players will kind of hang out together and the coaches will hang out by themselves but not too far, so they can still keep an eye, to make sure nobody’s doing anything too stupid. But I think most of the guys are good kids. It’s a pretty laid-back kind of experience. Obviously they’re there keeping an eye on you. But we’ll joke around and hang out. It’s fun.

When you’re at the gate wearing ASU stuff, do a lot of people come up and ask who you are and what you’re up to?

Newmeyer: Yeah, I think it’s a pretty strange sight I’m sure, to see 30 guys all wearing matching outfits walking around. People definitely come up and ask, ‘What are you guys?’ Some people like to chat for a minute and ask about the season and how you’re doing, that kind of thing. But a lot of people are just wondering what’s going on when you’re all wearing the same stuff.

Croston: We all have to wear the same exact thing. We wear black dress pants, the same color polo. So people see us when we’re wearing a yellow polo. People are always asking us what we’re doing and where we’re from. We have our backpacks on that say ASU Hockey. A lot of people will see that.

When you get to the destination, you’re at the hotel, do you guys ever get time to get out, do something recreation-wise?

Newmeyer: It all depends. We’re mostly on the tight schedule. When we fly in, if we fly in on a Thursday and play Friday, we’ll get in late Thursday and then the next day’s a game day. So we’ll have a pre-game skate. But there’s been a couple trips where we’ve had some time to go out and have some fun. I know when we were in Boston about a month ago, we played Northeastern. We had a team lunch and then about three hours to cruise around the city and do whatever we wanted to do. So that was fun. But that doesn’t happen too often, it just kind of depends on the situation, like where we’re at. This past couple weeks, we had a really long road trip so we did have quite a bit of time, being at Penn State for almost a full week. We were able to check that out during the day and stuff. You’re always conscious of what time it is, making sure you’re not missing anything.

Croston: Normally, it’s not too tight of a schedule because we just practice once a day. And then we’ll have breakfast, lunch and dinner. We might go to a movie. There’s just free time for us to do whatever we want and to hang out at the hotel. It just depends on what (the coach) wants.

What was something fun you did during your free time at Penn State?

Newmeyer: There was a couple things. We did a team thing together where we all went bowling. We made a bit of a competition of it. We split up into teams and calculated the average scores to see who was the best team and the best player. I think the other day, three or four of us went to the campus and just walked around for an hour or two and kind of saw what was going on to just see what other schools are like. I think that’s one thing that we try to do, wherever we go. If we’re close to campus, we’ll just go walk around because it’s cool to see all these different schools ... We always try to compare it to being a student here and we haven’t found one that’s better yet.

Croston: We just hung out in the hotel most of the time, went swimming. We went and saw a movie. We practiced every day, so that took up a couple hours out of the day. When we go eat, that takes up a lot of time because we eat breakfast lunch and dinner together ... but we didn’t do too much.

When you’re in a hotel, what’s the living situation like?

Newmeyer: The coaching staff picks it, we do two to a room. They’ll typically put forwards with forwards and defensemen with defensemen, so by position. It’s all two guys to a room, so it’s not too bad. I’ve been on teams in the past where it’s been three, four to a room so it gets kind of cramped. We’re pretty lucky in that sense.

What’s that like staying in a room with other guys? Is it good bonding? Do you get sick of each other?

Newmeyer: It’s fun. I think everybody enjoys it. For me personally, the only thing that really matters to me is if the other guy snores or not. That can become a problem. We’ve got a couple guys on our team that do that, so everyone’s kind of weary of getting them as roommates. But it is fun, you’re just kind of hanging out. It is a really good way to bond, especially at the beginning of the season when you’ve got new guys coming in. You might not know them that well, there’s not really a better way to get to know somebody than living with them.

Croston: There’s a certain few guys on our team that are pretty bad snorers. I don’t really have to worry about that because the guys who are snorers are defensemen. I’m not really worried about that, since I’m a forward. But yeah, there’s a couple guys who nobody wants to room with, because of that. It’s pretty funny, actually.

On gameday, you play a game, is it usually you go back to the hotel after the game or do you go straight to the airport for a red-eye?

Newmeyer: I can’t think of a time when we’ve taken a red-eye right after a game. We’ll head back to the hotel. I know Coach Powers likes to get out early, so ideally, we’ll be up at like 4:30, 5 o’clock on Sunday after a Saturday night game. We’ll get to the airport and then travel. Those days can be tough, but it’s nice when you get back at 10 in the morning on a Sunday after being back east, having the whole day instead of sitting around there and then traveling.

After a game, you guys might get a talk from Powers and then head back to the hotel and have personal time?

Croston: Normally, after a game, coach will make us go back to our rooms and we’ll all just get in a room together, hang out, watch TV. Depending on what time our flight is the next day, we’ll have a curfew and go back to our rooms. Then we’ll just get up the next day, drive to the airport.

I saw on Sun Devil Hockey Twitter that you guys were doing calisthenics in a parking lot in Boston. Is that typical road trip stuff or was that like a first time experience for you guys?

Newmeyer: That was the first time we did that kind of prison workout out there. I think this year, especially, we started working out more on the road. But it gets kind of tough with the hotel gyms, just because they’re so small. Especially on that kind of trip. We’ll work out during the week here a few times. Last week, we were sitting around there, and our trainer (Garnet Exelby) wanted to get us a lift but we can’t really fit in the hotel gym so we just worked with what he could put together. We went out in the parking lot and did a bunch of really loose exercises, no weights, and just kind of found a way to get something done.

How do you balance taking classes? How does school work when you’re on the road all the time?

Newmeyer (finance major): Yeah, it’s tough. I think every guy might treat it a little differently, what works for them. I know for this long one, our academic advisor was getting on us pretty heavy about getting in contact with all our teachers. When you miss a Wednesday-Thursday or just a Thursday-Friday, it’s not too big of a deal. But when you’re missing ten days, things can become a bit hairy. So on the road, once you’re out there, you just kind of got to make sure you have everything in order before you get there. That way, once you get there, nothing really surprises you.

It gets kind of tough to do it on the road. You’ve got so much going on and you’re on such a tight schedule that it’s tough to sit down and do three hours of homework when you’d rather just sit down, lay in bed, relax, get ready for the game. I know I do and a lot of other guys try to knock out as much as they can before.

I know a few guys had to go to Penn State or Boston College, one of the two schools, while we were there, to take exams. They had to be proctored.

Croston (finance major): Most of us are pretty good about it. I haven’t had any issues. There was one guy who had to fly back and go to class because the teacher wouldn’t allow him to miss class – I don’t know why. But the rest of us, they’re pretty lenient for the most part. We have an academic advisor who gets on us and makes sure we’re doing our study hours, doing our homework, especially the guys who are struggling with school. She’ll get on them. But everyone keeps up with their school for the most part so it’s pretty good.

Is there a something you remember that was just a really memorable moment on the road for you, perhaps where someone got in trouble on the road or maybe where something went wrong?

Newmeyer: There’s probably some things I can’t say. But once, when we were still playing club, we went down to Tucson to play U of A, and one of my teammates – one of my really good buddies – forgot his helmet here in Tempe and didn’t realize it until about 30 minutes before the game. Somebody that was coming from Tempe who hadn’t quite left yet was able to swing by the rink and go grab it for him so he could play. I think he missed the first period because he didn’t have his helmet, he just forgot it. There’s a bunch of weird little stories like that where guys are messing around, getting in trouble, all of that kind of stuff. I think we don’t want to mess with Powers too much (laughs). Everyone wants to stay on the good side, so we keep it pretty tame, I think.

Croston: There was one time last year where we had a guy, we were going out and we had to go through Ottawa on the way home, and we all needed passport. One guy had an enhanced driver’s license that he thought counted as a passport. But it was just for land and sea, not for air travel. So he had to Vancouver, drive over the border to Seattle, and then fly from Seattle to Arizona. It was kind of a mess. Other than that, travel goes pretty smooth. Guys normally don’t forget things. Our equipment manager is mostly in charge of all of that stuff for us, he packs our bags and stuff. He’s pretty good about that. We don’t really have to worry about much.

What are you going to miss most about being on the road with the guys?

Newmeyer: I think everything. Being on the road is a really fun experience. If you’ve never done something like it, it might be kind of foreign or something weird. But it’s a lot of fun to just be hanging out with your buddies for four days straight. Those bus rides suck, but it’s something that I think you look back on and you miss the grind of it. It sucks then but you kind of miss it, which is weird to think about. But the long plane rides and waking up at 4 in the morning to catch a flight to Tempe, all of that little stuff, I think that’s the fun stuff that you might take for granted that you might miss when it’s all said and done.

Croston: I’d probably say just hanging out at the hotel with the guys. We don’t really do much. I think the most fun part of the road trip is just hanging out in the hotel. Obviously the games are fun, but it’s not a serious environment when we’re just hanging out with the guys. I think that’s the most fun part – to get to know each other and bond as a group, I think that’s the main part that I’ll miss.

Reach the reporter at matthew.layman@asu.edu or follow @Mattjlayman on Twitter.

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