(MACON, Ga.) – “A kid I met in my first-grade class, I was playing road hockey with him one day and his mom asked my mom if I would be interested in playing goalie,” Josh Boyko said. “On the way home my mom asked me if I’d be interested in giving it a go and I said it can’t be much different than road hockey so yeah, I’m happy to try it. The first practice out there I got hit in hand with the puck making a save. It bruised my hand and it hurt but that was enough to hook me into being a goalie.”
Boyko grew up in a two-sport family and played lacrosse, getting the opportunity to play for the Canadian national team and win a national championship. He went on to play junior hockey until he turned 20, when he made the decision that it was time to leave a year early. He made the decision to go on a recruiting visit with his future coach, Jason Bloomberg, at Aurora University and had a conversation that would stick with him.
“I asked him if he’d ever put a C on a goalies jersey,” he said. “He said, ‘I would never do that, I just think you guys are a massive part of the team, but that’s just not something I would do.’”
Boyko committed to Aurora as a dual athlete for hockey in the winter and lacrosse in the spring. Going into his freshman hockey season, just like any player, he wanted to start more than anything.
“I didn’t want to sit around and watch, so they told me you got to earn it, but if you get it, the keys, the keys to the car will be yours,” he said. “I didn’t get to start the very first game of the season which was definitely irritating because I had the hopes of wanting to play but in the end, I think it was best.”
When senior year rolled around for Boyko, his coach spoke with him about that captain’s C.
“He said, ‘I don’t think there’s any reason that we don’t give it to you,’ so my roommate and I shared the captain C, so it was pretty special for me,” he said.
After his master’s year in 2022, Boyko signed a contract with the Maine Mariners in the ECHL, and made that team out of camp while also signing with the Peoria Rivermen. A couple months later, he found himself on the on and off the phone with former Macon Mayhem coach, Nick Niedert, for about a month before making the decision to come to Macon.
“I drove from Pennsylvania to Georgia, which was about 14 hours, all in one drive,” he said. “Got dinner with the guys and then we left to go to Peoria for four days, bussed back to Georgia on Monday and I got called to Idaho [The ECHL’s Steelheads] that Sunday, so I left Tuesday once we got back and spent the rest of the season there. So my time in Macon was no more than 24 combined hours.”
Since 2023, Boyko has spent his time primarily in Macon, with call ups to two ECHL teams sprinkled in last season, but unfortunately Boyko faced a pause in this season when he was injured in November. Having to be off the ice, his parents and girlfriend gifted him a way to get some practice.
“They bought me a VR headset and NHL Sense Arena.” He said. “Not being able to get on the ice there for a long time was extremely frustrating, just because you want to be back and when things obviously aren’t going great, you feel like you can make an impact. Having myself be able to see game situations whether there was a two on one, power play, guys coming down wings and just taking shots and going through making those saves really helped me prepare for myself for when I was coming back.”
When he made his debut on Feb. 2, he made 46 saves and scored a goalie goal, a first for the franchise. A night he said was one of his favorites of his career.
“On top of that, [It was great to] do it at home and having all the guys jump off the bench and celebrate with me,” he said.
Boyko says it’s his parents, grandmother, brother, and girlfriend that he would thank for all of this. It’s also his friends and teammates along the way that have helped make everything happen.
#AllOutMayhem