Editor's note: This story appears in the June/July issue of New England Hockey Journal.
Sitting on the bench, thinking he was supporting his teammates, Joe Nagle yelled “Hit!” as one of his buddies on the Northeast Generals forechecked against the New Jersey Titans. But there was one problem. Nagle wasn’t a General anymore, and the Titan he wanted to be knocked off the puck was, in fact, one of his new teammates.
“It happened a few times,” the defenseman admitted, “accidentally cheering on the wrong team.”
You can’t fault him.
A Weymouth, Mass., native, Nagle, who turned 21 years old in May, joined the Generals late in the 2016-17 season after developing in the Lovell Hockey organization with the Boston Advantage since his PeeWee minor year, and he remained with Northeast for most of the next three campaigns before being traded to New Jersey in early February as part of a three-team transaction.
The deal also saw the Titans send defenseman Mac Wiseman to the Corpus Christi IceRays and the IceRays dispatch forward Kyle Schroeder to the Generals. In a separate transaction, the Generals acquired blueliner Alexander Tertyshny from the IceRays to help fill the Nagle-sized void on their back end.
“Being traded was tough,” said Nagle, who was the Generals captain this season. “There were a handful of guys who I had been playing with for many years, and I was going somewhere where I didn’t know anyone. I was kind of ‘The Guy’ on Northeast, and then I went to a place where I was a nobody to a certain degree. It was an eye-opening experience.”
Nagle could’ve nixed the deal. And, truthfully, Generals head coach and general manager Bryan Erikson had no interest in moving the player he called “the best natural defenseman I’ve ever coached.” However, after a deep conversation between the two that ended with them hugging and shedding tears, both Nagle and Erikson knew that the trade was in the best interest of both parties.
In Nagle’s case, he was still seeking a college commitment.
“We thought there was some scout fatigue. They had seen him play in the same area for 10 years in kind of the same program with Lovell Hockey and the Generals,” Erikson said. “The idea was to put him with another coach in another organization that we trusted and respected — (Titans head coach and general manager) Craig Doremus and the Titans are the epitome of that for us — and in a position where he’s playing with other kids, a lot of kids who are committed. We knew other schools would see him and see him in different situations.”
The plan worked. Shortly after his arrival in New Jersey, Nagle committed to the University of New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, the Generals entered the post-Nagle era with their sights set on not only making the Robertson Cup playoffs, but also with an eye focused on improving their team for next season.
On Feb. 14 and 15, though, the two worlds collided when the Generals invaded the Garden State. The Titans won the first game, but Northeast emerged victorious the following night.
Chuckled Erikson: “I never chirp players on the other team, but (Tertyshny) scored two goals (in the second game), so I said, ‘New Nagle is better than old Nagle!’ I teased him. He’s got really rosy cheeks, gets embarrassed real easy. I told him the red helmet clashed with his cheeks.
“I love the kid. It was weird coaching against him, but when you put him with a guy with an impeccable character like Doremus, you know he’s in the right hands. That softened it.”
Hockey runs in Nagle’s family. His dad, Joe Sr., played the ice sport at Weymouth South High School and Boston State College. His older brother, Jack, skated for Archbishop Williams High School, Worcester State University and Assumption College. Both men were defensemen.
Like most Bay Staters, Nagle is a Boston Bruins fan. And like many New England natives who are defensemen, the 5-foot-11, 185-pounder models his game after Bruins blueliner Torey Krug.
“We have a similar stature,” Nagle said, “and both of us are undersized guys.”
Nagle began his youth hockey tenure with the Boston Junior Terriers before switching to the Advantage. With the Advantage, his skill level elevated with each passing season.
“When I started with the Advantage, I was under-average in terms of skill,” Nagle remembered. “(President) Tim Lovell and (vice president) Joe Lovell pride themselves on and preach skill development, and they really improved mine through the years. Tim wouldn’t punish you if you made a mistake. He coached you through it. I wasn’t scared to make a mistake — obviously, you didn’t want to make a mistake — but if I did I was able to learn from it.”
Nagle also started learning how to be a leader.
“Tim and Joe both played pro, so they knew how to have fun, laugh and joke around with the guys away from the rink,” Nagle said. “But once you were at the rink, it was time to work. Everything was serious.”
Reflecting on his time with the Advantage, Nagle treasures the trips his club took to various road cities in the Tier 1 Elite Hockey League. The fact that he had many of the same teammates each season made the experiences extra special.
“Playing away from home, it was like a vacation, but also a business trip,” Nagle recounted. “And a lot of us grew up playing together. I played with two of the Gaudette brothers (Brady and Cam) for a long time. That’s what’s unique about the Advantage. Many of us grew up playing together through the youth ranks and then went to the Generals and played with each other there.”
Nagle made the leap to the North American Hockey League in February 2017 and finished the campaign with two assists in 12 contests with Northeast.
In 2017-18, his first full NAHL season, Nagle totaled 11 points (1-10-11) in 51 games. He appeared in five postseason matches.
“My first full year in the league, I was just a role guy,” Nagle said. “(Then-head coach) Joe Lovell and (then-assistant coach and general manager) Erikson showed me how to work to just stay in the lineup. They kept me honest and showed me that you have to work to have opportunities.”
Nagle elevated his play in 2018-19, recording 17 points (2-15-17) in 41 regular-season games and four points (1-3-4) in five playoff contests.
Stated the right-handed shooter: “I became more of a go-to guy and the coaches put me out in more crucial times.”
Nagle became an even more prominent player for the Generals this season when he was named captain. The additional duties weren’t foreign to him, however, since he had been studying the tactics of previous captains all along.
“In my first two years with the Generals, Colin Bilek was the captain, and although he’s one of the hardest people to describe, he was the best leader I’ve ever met in my life,” Nagle explained. “He now plays for the United States Military Academy (Army West Point). I remember the speeches he gave in the locker room. He knew when to give a speech and how to not have his voice get old in the room. He knew when to talk to the guys and when to let them do their thing. The one thing he instilled in me, and I tried to instill it in the guys this year, is that even though junior hockey is incredibly selfish because everybody is competing against each other for the same deal, to have a successful team you have to care about the next guy. You can’t be playing for yourself.”
The Generals didn’t live up to their expectations this season and were still fighting to claim the last playoff spot in the East Division when Nagle was dealt. The grind of losing more than winning took a toll on the players, and it forced the captains — Nagle and alternate captains Cam Gaudette (Braintree, Mass.) and Gerard Marretta — to create new ways to rev up their teammates before games.
“We didn’t want to keep giving speeches and say the same thing over and over. We did a roll call, naming the starting lineup but using our nicknames, and chanted,” revealed Nagle, alias “Night Rider.” “We tried different things before warm-ups while we were playing sewer ball. We had mandatory team-building activities to get all the guys together.”
Nagle posted 22 points (3-19-22) in 38 games with the Generals in 2019-20 before he was traded to the East Division-leading Titans, with whom he notched two assists in 13 contests before the remainder of the campaign and the playoffs were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I wish I could’ve ended my junior career with the Generals, but going to the Titans was the right move,” Nagle asserted. “I was excited to make a run with them because it was unique how good of a team we had in New Jersey.”
Although the Titans’ chase for a championship abruptly ended, Nagle was able to fulfill a personal goal by committing to New Hampshire. And no one was happier for Nagle than Erikson, who watched him hone his craft and fine-tune his physique the past four seasons.
“Joe is a stay-at-home defenseman, but he’s got sneaky offensive ability. He’s a great skater. He’s great with his angles, his gaps, retrieving pucks and making a great outlet pass,” Erikson concluded. “The biggest metamorphosis with Joe was his own. When he came to us, he was chubby; he was a little butterball. But he changed his work ethic and his diet and transformed into this kid who cares about everything that he puts into his body, and he outworks everybody at the gym.
"The physical transformation allowed him to now win a lot of physical battles on the walls, and it got him physically and mentally stronger to make the jump to the college level. He made the decision to put the work in and use the resources the Generals had at the rink as well as the ones he had at home to transform himself physically and mentally into a Division 1 hockey player.”
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