The bus drivers are essential to the American Hockey League’s existence, bringing the team from arena to arena, making late-night red-eye drives, powering through all the weather elements, and handling the 72-game grind plus the Calder Cup Playoffs if the team makes it that far. 

It sounds like a dream job: driving the bus of a sports team, and in the AHL, it’s the future stars of the NHL. Is the job as cool as it sounds? What is it like to be a bus driver for an AHL team? As one would expect, the job isn’t as glamorous as it sounds, yet any bus driver in the league will be quick to talk about how rewarding and incredible the opportunity is. 

It’s the first question anyone has, the most obvious question. When teachers go around the class and ask the students what they want to be when they grow up, is their answer a bus driver? How does someone become one? How does someone go from driving coach buses to the team bus? 

Like many niche or unique jobs, especially in hockey, it’s a combination of mystery and opportunity. Is anyone born to be a goaltender? Or have a voice to be the public address announcer reading off the goal scorers and penalties? What about the driving instincts to handle all the conditions thrown at them? Sure, someone might be born to drive but it takes a lot of time, miles, and practice to drive any vehicle and drive it well. 

The AHL driver starts by working for a charter coach bus company, whether it’s the Martz Bus Company or Hale Transportation, or another local transportation group. Joining one of these teams, of course, doesn’t just mean getting a driver's licence. Any bus driver must pass all the requirements and training to get the position in the first place. That includes a commercial driver’s licence (CDL) and a proven track record of driving various vehicles, from trailers to buses to trucks. Plus, some states or provinces like California or Ontario have extra requirements, including passenger or Class C endorsements. 

Most teams use one of these companies and rotate drivers. Hale Transportation, for example, drives the Syracuse Crunch and the Utica Comets with a handful of drivers often taking on different games or road trips. However, a few teams have one driver who has been with the team for a few years to the point where they become a part of the team; that’s certainly how James Rhodan felt when the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins went on a deep Calder Cup Playoff run, and he watched every victory from Hershey to Toronto. 

Rhodan became the Penguins' driver through hard work, not only by driving the coach buses well but by maintaining a professional standard and standing out in the Martz company. When the position opened up, Rhodan checked off all of the boxes to take on the role. 

In some ways, the call-up to the AHL for a bus driver is the equivalent of a call-up for a player for the NHL. It’s the call to the big leagues. It means that they are trusted with driving at any level and in any conditions. 

It’s worth noting that every team in every league has a bus driver or company. Junior or college hockey will often rely on a charter bus, albeit with fewer miles because both leagues are regional. The NHL teams charter flights for most of their road games, and the PWHL, while still in the early years of existence, will eventually have a similar travel schedule to the NHL. 

In the AHL, teams travel by bus with two exceptions: a cross-country road trip (which a few teams are doing this season) or the Calder Cup Playoffs when the series is long-distance. The only league that comes close is the ECHL, where the teams travel by bus to small towns across the country. However, ECHL teams will have extended home stands or road trips against the same opponent, preventing the schedule from being too intense. Even as the AHL moves away from back-to-backs and three-in-threes, teams can still run into a weekend where they face Hartford, Providence, and Springfield or another divisional trio in the same weekend. 

Any AHL driver gets the promotion through hard work. Sometimes, they also need a little luck. Chris Roberts had a little bit of it with the Syracuse Crunch, a Phil Pritchard moment, if you will. Hale Transportation needed someone to drive the team because the regular driver wasn’t available. Roberts stepped up and has been driving the team ever since. 

Roberts, while fortunate, also provides a lesson about success in the AHL, or any job for that matter. The best ability is availability. It’s the secret to longevity and an essential part of the driving role. To be a great driver, you must show up every day and deliver. A skater can have an off night, and nobody will notice. If a driver has a bad night or isn’t available, the game doesn’t happen in the first place. 

The surprise is that the drivers must remain professional and, specifically, can’t root for the team. They must remove their emotions and maintain the same approach to the job regardless of how the team plays. And that’s not easy because a big win can make the bus ride feel like a joy ride with music and plenty of chatter in the back, while a tough loss can be a quiet and tense ride. A fan might drive differently after a frustrating loss, maybe with a bit of road rage. The team driver can’t. 

Game day is always the most intense, especially when it’s on the road, and the team is coming in the night before. These days are regimented, for everyone from the players to the coaches, and the day is planned out like clockwork. It’s a busy one from the moment these drivers wake up.

8:30 AM - Wake Up. This means that for the next hour and a half, the bus driver is up, has the bus inspected for any potential issues, and is ready to go. If there’s a morning skate, which is usually the case for a 7 PM night game, the bus must be ready by 10:00 AM.

10:00 AM -  Drive To Morning Skate. This is the first trip of the day and certainly won’t be the last. 

11:30 AM - Return From Morning Skate To The Hotel. While the team is getting their pregame meetings, meals, and naps in, the bus driver has their longest break of the day, the few hours of calm before the craziness. 

3:45 PM - Drive The Coaches To The Arena. The coaches always want to be there early, so usually, they are driven a few minutes, if not half an hour, before the rest of the team to the game. 

4:30 PM - Drive The Team To The Arena. Sometimes, there’s an extra trip for the scratches, but this is when the players make the social media teams happy with their slow walks from the bus through the tunnel and into the area.  

5:00 PM - 7:00 PM - Nap Time. It’s a common theme in hockey. These naps are vital, and everyone takes them, especially on game nights. While the players are practicing, the drivers are charging up for the long drive ahead. 

7:00 PM - Game Time. Bus drivers will watch the first two periods before heading back to the bus. A perk for the driver is access to every game, whether it’s a free ticket or a spot with the rest of the team. 

8:30 PM - 9:30 PM - Another Nap.

9:30 PM - Get The Bus Started. When the game ends, the players usually cool down, change, and grab food while the coaches go through their meetings. While all this is happening, the bus is getting ready. It must be on for at least 20 or 30 minutes before the team hits the road again, especially in the winter. 

10:00 PM / 10:30 PM - Head Out. At this point, the bus driver is prepared for any type of drive, whether it’s a few minutes to the nearby hotel, an hour to the next opponent on the road trip, or four hours back to the home arena if needed. 

Of course, this schedule, while rigid, is subject to change. If the game goes into overtime, the team will leave later. If it’s a Sunday afternoon game, teams won’t have a morning skate, but they’ll be quick to wrap things up when the game ends. If there’s a snowstorm coming in and the team wants to get back home after a long road trip, they’ll rush everything to hit the road. 

That’s what happened with the Penguins this season when they were in Bridgeport on February 22nd. The same morning that the USA hockey team won the Gold Medal at the Olympics was the same night that New England was pummelled with two feet of snow. The afternoon game between the Penguins and the Bridgeport Islanders was pushed up from 5 PM to 3 PM, and if it hadn’t been, the team wouldn’t have made it out. 

“It was tight,” Penguins broadcaster Nick Hart noted afterwards. The team wrapped everything up and was on the road by 6 PM. The ride back was rocky but manageable. The Penguins made it back. 

It’s just one of the crazy stories, yet not the one that comes to mind for Rhodan. Although, like many bus drivers, there are plenty that stand out. 

Anyone who has covered or worked in the AHL for a season knows about the daunting drives. The Hutchinson Parkway confirms that you have a healthy blood pressure and heart rate. The late-night drives through the Pennsylvania forests test your eyesight with deer jumping on the road at any point. The drive from Laval to Toronto is eight hours through nothing, just empty land for miles before finally reaching a city. The Midwest is charming until a two-lane highway is shared with trucks on top of trucks. 

This environment will provide plenty of anecdotes. Throw in the long, cold wintry nights and a bus full of AHLers, and there’s a lifetime worth of wild stories. 

Rhodan remembers the Penguins coming back from a 10-day, four-game road trip in the middle of the 2024-25 season. “We were coming back from Laval about 10:30, and as soon as we crossed the border by Watertown, New York, blinding snow.” Watertown is east of Lake Ontario, and the lake-effect snow can make anyone wonder if they’ll make it out alive. Now, imagine driving through that with a bus full of the Pittsburgh Penguins' future in it. 

“I turn around to Kirk MacDonald, the head coach, expecting him to want to book a hotel for the night. Not at all!” The Penguins had a game around the corner, and they had to be back in Wilkes-Barre. “I can’t see anything, and I’m losing a little bit of traction but after about an hour of going about 20 miles per hour, it was clear,” Rhodan added.

Roberts can handle the snow, living in Upstate New York and driving through it for most of the year. He put his foot down for ice. “We were down in Hershey, and an ice storm came through during the game,” he recalled. It’s where he called the Crunch VP of hockey operations and forced the team to get a hotel for the night and drive back to Syracuse early the next morning. For some teams, it’s a numbers game. By staying overnight, they saved an hour or two on the road, and those hours add up in a 72-game season. 

Snow, however, is something Roberts is used to, and he’ll drive through any blizzard. “There was a winter storm warning; everything was closing down, and they wouldn’t cancel the game for some reason,” so the Crunch left for the game early, and a trip to Utica that usually takes 40 minutes took an hour and 40 minutes. The Crunch were the only ones on the road that day. 

These drives are intimidating for most people. The good thing about the AHL is that many of the players are used to these bus rides. They come from cold-weather environments and played junior hockey. Like the bus drivers, they are accustomed to the cold and snow, so they are unfazed by these rides. 

The Calder Cup Playoffs are a fascinating part of the job. It’s a time of the year when heatwaves and flash floods replace snow and ice storms. On one hand, they might love the playoffs and the excitement that comes with them. On the other hand, it’s more work for the drivers who sometimes work two extra months with the AHL team. The drivers must remain professional and can’t root for the team. At the same time, they get close to the players and become part of the team, almost like a family. 

Rhodan admitted that as he was watching the Penguins' playoff run, he was hoping it would continue. It started against Hershey, an hour and a half drive from Wilkes-Barre, then they faced the Springfield Thunderbirds, who were over 200 miles away, until the clock struck midnight against the Toronto Marlies in a hard-fought six-game series. And Rhodan loved every second of it. 

Another fascinating layer to the life behind the wheel, especially come playoff time it that the drivers, like the media who cover the league, secretly root for travel. The closer the drive between the two teams, the better. That said, one of the best parts of the job is visiting all the great cities around the league. Some of the cities, especially up North, are where many of the players are from. The players from Quebec know where to stop when the team is in Laval, while the Ontario prospects know the best places in Belleville or Toronto, and starting this season, Hamilton. 

The story of the driver is a reminder of just how great the AHL is. The people who make up the league, most of whom are behind the scenes, from the cooks to the equipment managers to the longtime security guards or ushers who know everyone on a first-name basis. These people aren’t in the spotlight and aren’t looking for it either. They just show up every day and do their job.   

It’s also a reminder of how many fans are out there. The bus drivers were surprised at first when they would travel to a small town with an AHL team and see the passionate fanbase of the team and the crowds on a cold January night. It’s something anyone who covers or follows the AHL knows but few hockey fans notice until they experience it firsthand. 

It sounds like a dream job to drive the players, and it is a cool gig. Of course, it’s not so glamorous and certainly not for the faint of heart. Driving through extreme weather requires a calm clutch gene that only the players and drivers seem to have.

While the job gets intense, they wouldn’t trade in for anything. Roberts talks about the lifelong relationships he's formed with some of the Crunch players, some of whom are now stars on the Tampa Bay Lightning. If you want to be a team driver, “Go for it,” as Rhodan stated.