Wheeling, W.V. — Shane Bakker doesn't need a map. He's travelled this road before.

The 27-year-old gasses up his Chevy Trailblazer and heads east out of West Virginia across the Pennsylvania border.

From there, his destination is a straight shot north — past the orchards and silos; past the native smoke shacks and truck stops and more mutilated raccoon carcasses than he can count.

Six hours and 539 kilometres of asphalt later he's arrived in Hamilton to chase his dream. Slowly, carefully, he tugs the Bulldogs' jersey over his head and hits the ice.

"It was exciting," he remembers. "I knew it was my last kick at the can."

For Bakker and his teammates in Wheeling, a small city of around 28,000 where Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia meet, Hamilton is hockey's holy grail — a place where a minor-league player can go from earning $10,000 a season to more than $30,000 overnight.

But the journey isn't just about a higher pay grade. It's about an opportunity to achieve something that has propelled them since childhood: a chance to make it to the big show, the National Hockey League, where the players are idols and the hockey is the best in the world.

For the boys in Wheeling, a promotion to Hamilton, the Canadiens' American Hockey League affiliate, brings that goal — and the multimillion-dollar contracts that come with it — within reach. However, grasping it is tough and exceptionally rare.

In the ECHL, where Bakker is a forward with the Wheeling Nailers, only about half the players have made the jump to the AHL, the middle rung on the professional hockey ladder. Fewer still — 564 skaters in the league's 27-year history, or less than seven per cent — have gone all the way to the top.

That doesn't mean they've made a career in the NHL, either. It could mean a month in the league or even as little as a single game.

The players in Wheeling sacrifice everything from their personal lives to their personal finances to claw their way up the ranks. And they're constantly anticipating the call.

When it finally comes — whether it's at midnight or 6 a.m. — the boys pack up and hit the road. At the time, they don't know whether they'll be gone for a day, a week or for good.

Over the past six months, Bakker and his teammates have logged nearly 16,000 kilometres travelling from Wheeling to Hamilton and back. He alone drove the stretch four times — twice up and twice down.

"Just going through that, it prepares you for pro life, because nothing is ever guaranteed," says the native of Navan, Ont., a rural town on the outskirts of Ottawa. "It's a cutthroat business."

The 6-foot-4, 210-pounder isn't exaggerating. It could take years for a player to fight his way to the AHL and just one flub for a ticket home.

The pressure is immense, says Sahir Gill, another Nailers' forward — the perpetual feeling that you can't really ever let up.

"You've got to come every day," he adds. "You're always engaged, you're always trying to be at your best, which is going to help you when you're trying to make an impression.

"You don't want to get too comfortable ever. You don't want to relax when you have that opportunity where they can look at you and say, 'Hey, maybe we don't need this guy.'"



Each season, a steady stream of players from the ECHL's Wheeling Nailers migrates north to Hamilton (and back south again) in pursuit of their pro hockey dream. Here's the route they take to the team's soon-to-be-relocated parent club in Hamilton. Distance: 539 km, driving time: 5 hours 22 minutes, recalls and assignments: 29. Total distance: 15,631 km, total driving time: 155 hours 38 minutes.



The odds of cracking the Bulldogs' lineup have never been good for the players in Wheeling, Hamilton's longest-standing ECHL affiliate. The irony is they're about to get worse.

A month ago, Bulldogs' owner Michael Andlauer sold the AHL franchise to the Canadiens. They're moving the team to Newfoundland at the end of this season.

The relocation means the trips between Wheeling and Hamilton will cease later this month. And there's a chance the same could go for the affiliation.

According to ECHL commissioner Brian McKenna, partnership agreements are negotiated on an annual basis. That means he won't know until the off-season whether the Canadiens plan to continue their association with the Nailers.

"Certainly, from a logistical point of view, it makes things a little more difficult to get players back and forth, but that doesn't mean they couldn't co-exist," he says. "Hopefully the relationship can continue even if they're in St. John's."

An affiliation change, if it happens, will be one of the smaller ripples in a league set to lose three traditional markets next season and gain three others. But, much like the players and teams that compose it, the ECHL is accustomed to flux — which is probably a good thing, at least as far as the level of hockey is concerned.

Ask anyone in the loop — coaches, managers or players — and they'll tell you the league isn't what it used to be. Once a haven for fighters and a final outpost for the not-so-skilled, the ECHL is now an incubator for young players in their early 20s trying to make the leap.

"About a decade ago, we made a conscious decision to become more of a development league, to try to build our ties organization by organization with teams in the American League and the NHL and I think to a large degree that has worked," says McKenna.

"We provide a good, competitive environment for our players to play in and one that's entertaining for our fans, and hopefully that presents an opportunity for kids to come in and play and work their way up."

One of those kids is Gill, a 22-year-old from Terrace, B.C., who split this season between Wheeling, Hamilton and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton — the Nailers' other AHL affiliate. Passed over in the NHL draft, his sights are set on using the minors as a stepping stone to a larger stage.

The ECHL, he says, is great for growth, because a long schedule and short roster means you play. A lot. Plus, it imparts important life skills — everything from eating right to getting enough rest.

"It prepares you that way for the next level."



Wheeling Nailers coach Clark Donatelli on the jump from ECHL to AHL hockey.



Wheeling has been home to an ECHL team since the Winston-Salem Thunderbirds came to town from South Carolina in 1992. Four years later, when it was first affiliated with the Bulldogs, the club was renamed for the city's history as a nail producing hub.

Two decades down the road the Nailers are still going strong, despite a slow slide in attendance. A quick walk around town hints at why. In a way it's like Hamilton: a fading rust-bucket town undergoing an economic and cultural renaissance.

Everywhere you go in Wheeling, you find traces of the team — a poster in the window of an old office tower or a bouquet of cookies in a bake-shop window iced in Nailers' black and gold. And, as pretty much everyone you run into will tell you, it's the only game in town.

"I hate to talk down on Wheeling, but if the Nailers ever end up leaving town Wheeling would die," says Devin Clark, a longtime booster. "I really believe that."

His friend, Terri Cramer, nods her head.

"They're awesome," she adds in the area's characteristic southern drawl. "And I feel the same way every year, whether they're in the basement or up in the clouds."

The love affair is mutual.

Ask the players, who converge here from all corners of the continent, what they think of Wheeling and there's no hesitation.

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"Everyone kind of rallies around this town," adds Gill, the B.C.-born forward. "I think they kind of fit in. It's blue collar and I think that's the kind of game we play here. The guys enjoy having that identity."

Zack Torquato backs the assessment.

"The people in this city are great," says the four-year vet, a Sault Ste. Marie native the guys jokingly call the Mayor of Wheeling — a gentle prod at his multitude of connections in the tight-knit community.

"It reminds me a lot of back home. I like the small town and hard-working people and I've made a lot of good friendships here. So it's always easy to come back."

Part of what makes the bond so strong is how the players live, and where. The Nailers, like the rest of the clubs in the ECHL, pay their players modestly — as little as $460 a week — but cover housing and utilities.

The result is something akin to summer camp. With the exception of Torquato and a couple of others who are holed up downtown, the players live in wood cabins on a golf course overlooking the city. In their downtime they build fires and cook for each other and, when it's nice out, hit the links.

"I think the best part of Wheeling is the guys," says Derek Army, a 23-year-old forward from Rhode Island. "I like the bonding and the chemistry."

The players' affection for the place and each other is pervasive. Yet it's at odds with the goal of getting out of the city and out of the league — something which depends, at least in part, on going head-to-head with your closest allies.

"You've got to play hockey, be a good teammate, work hard," says 24-year-old blueliner Bobby Shea, who started the season in Wheeling and was promoted to the Bulldogs, where he's played 19 games. "But it's also a business; it's competition, and you want to beat out the next guy."



Players from the Wheeling Nailers, the Hamilton Bulldogs' ECHL affiliate, talk about their shared goal to scale the pro hockey ladder.



The problem for Shea and his colleagues is the chances are bleak.

Since 1996, just 52 of the more than 600 players who've passed through Wheeling have made an appearance in the NHL. That's better than the league average, but still fewer than nine per cent.

"There's no question it's still an uphill battle," says McKenna, the ECHL commissioner. "We largely don't see first-round picks, the surefire guys that are going to come down and play a few months in the American League and then make the jump. Usually the guys at this level are lower picks or are, in some cases, undrafted players who work very hard to make their way up through the system."

David Desharnais is a good example.

Despite tallying 374 points over the course of a four-year junior career, the minuscule Quebecer was passed over in the 2004 draft. A couple of seasons later he earned a tryout with the Habs, but didn't make the cut in Montreal or Hamilton.

So he signed with the ECHL's Cincinnati Cyclones instead.

In 2007-08, his rookie campaign, Desharnais won the league's scoring title and led the Cyclones to a Kelly Cup championship. The following year, he inked a two-way contract that landed him with the Bulldogs, where battled for the next three campaigns — at a point-per-game pace, no less — for a promotion to Montreal.

His hard work paid off. Today, the 28-year-old is a top-line centre with a four-year, $14-million contract with the Canadiens.

"I think seeing something like that, a player who's overlooked at a young age, but then works his way into being a regular in the NHL — I think that gives encouragement to a lot of young players in our league," McKenna says.

He's right. Stories like Desharnais' inspire confidence in these guys, many of whom truly believe they can follow the same path.

"I want to play in the NHL," says Gill. "That's been the dream and the goal all along."

But his optimism and that of his teammates clashes with the reality of the situation. Most of them won't make it — not even to Hamilton.

Not that it matters.

In a few weeks the team will be gone and they will be chasing their dream even further, maybe all the way to Newfoundland.

Looks like the long road to the AHL just got longer.