Game On Magazine 2017 Nov Game On low res | Page 105

REALLY? YOU DIDN’T PLAY
FOR THE TEAM THAT HAD
YOUR CONTRACT?
“Yeah, I played a game for an-
other team – during a game in
Danbury. The Cape Cod Bluefins
came to town. They were in the
league, but their ownership
had folded the team and the
league was running it. So when
they’d go to different towns to
play, they had some guys who
were committed to the team to
play, but they didn’t have a full
roster, so they’d call up guys in
each town to fill out the roster.
It was basically a beer league
THOMAS
team. So anyway, with the guys
down from the ECHL, I’m a
WITH THE
healthy scratch and I’m watch-
ing warm-up and our owner
SUTTON STING
comes by and says, ‘You want to
suit up tonight?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’
and he said, ‘You’ll be playing
for the other team.’ I immedi-
ately said, ‘Will I get paid?’ He
says, “Ah, sure.’ In the Federal
Chiefs – with the Danbury
League, you were paid by the
Whalers in Danbury, Conn.
game ($175) – and you lived in
I was 20, and Phil Esposito
a house the team rented with
was the head coach. Not that
eight other teammates. So I got
Phil Esposito, a different Phil
paid and I played the game, but
Esposito. This guy was quite
at Christmas, I went home and
interesting. He had to clear his I’d played four games. So I sat
nose every couple of minutes
down with my parents, and we
because he’d broken it so many figured I was better off staying
times.
at home and going back to
“So I went to free agent camp Selkirk to finish out the season
and all the guys at the camp had with the Fishermen. That was
a meeting with him before the
2012-13 and we lost in the final
first skate and he said, ‘Nobody to Peguis.”
here is getting a contract offer.
SO HOW DID YOU
You are all competing to get
GET TO EUROPE?
invited to main camp.’ OK, at
“At this point, I’m out of junior
least he was up front about it.
Then two days after we started eligibility, so my dad put on
his agent hat and we started
skating he pulled me into the
to explore opportunities. After
office and said, ‘We’re offer-
the Federal League experience,
ing you a contract.’ Which was
great, but it was the year of the we decided we weren’t doing
that again, so we started to look
NHL lockout. So there were
overseas. We found that to play
groups of guys who kind of
in the British National League
bumped down – those eligible
to play in the AHL went to from – their Division 3 – you needed
the NHL to the AHL, a group of an ancestry visa and because
AHL guys would then be moved my mom’s dad, my grandfather,
to the ECHL and so on. So, I’m was born in the UK, I qualified
20, on this Federal League team for the visa and got signed by
Sutton.
and I ended up playing four
“So off I went to Sutton for
games – one of which wasn’t
my first pro season. It was the
even for Danbury.”
2010
Selkirk Fishermen
of the KJHL
2012
Danbury Whalers
of the Federal League
2014
Billingham Stars of the
National Ice Hockey
League of the UK
2016
Nijmegen of the
Dutch League
2017
With Team Canada
in Australia
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