‘What are the odds?’ From Yukon to AC Boise, a unique soccer success story
In the grand scheme of the sports world, Boise’s new local soccer team may seem like a drop of water in the wide-open ocean.
Athletic Club Boise — named after the Spanish club Athletic Club Bilbao and in honor of the two cities’ Basque roots — has only existed as a competitive soccer team for about three months. The club plays in USL League One, effectively the third tier of soccer in the United States, at a stadium that seats just over 7,200 fans.
According to FIFA, the world’s governing body for soccer, there were 3,986 professional men’s soccer teams in the world in 2023. Three years on, including the addition of AC Boise, that number is almost certainly over 4,000.
But among all of that noise, AC Boise can claim one thing that no other club in the world can: the only person from the Yukon, Canada, ever to sign a professional soccer contract.
Forward Joe Hanson, 22, is one of the 22 players on AC Boise’s inaugural roster. He recently made his first start in late May, but his story begins in the small town of Whitehorse, a settlement in the far northern reaches of the Canadian wilderness that boasts a population similar to that of Eagle, Idaho.
Whitehorse is by far the largest city in northern Canada.
“It’s amazing. This is what I love about football, the stories like this,” AC Boise head coach Nate Miller recently told the Idaho Statesman. “What are the odds that someone like him becomes a professional footballer?”
Leaving the wilds of Alaska
Whitehorse is about 120 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean in the deep, forested valley that runs along the Yukon River. If you were to leave from Juneau, Alaska, it would take an almost five-hour ferry ride up to the small town of Skagway, which is then followed by a drive exceeding two hours across the Canadian border, until you finally reach Whitehorse.
And that’s if the weather is cooperating.
“You’re really isolated. It’s a quiet little town,” Hanson said. “ The people are very nice, a little slower pace of life.”
Long story short, it’s not an easy place to travel to and from — especially for a young soccer player looking to make an impact on a wider stage.
Fortunately for Hanson, he had a few things working in his favor.
Both of his parents played college soccer at Ambassador College, a now-closed institution that was about two hours east of Dallas, Texas. Although the pair met in the sweltering heat of central Texas, his mother, Sarah, was originally from Whitehorse, and all it took was a single visit in their young 20s for Hanson’s father, Jake, to fall in love with the town.
The pair settled down in Whitehorse and started the Yukon Selects, a semi-professional soccer and futsal program that represents the entire Yukon region on the national stage. That’s where Hanson first started to hone his soccer skills, and where he found himself when he first started getting noticed by outside parties around the age of 9.
Hanson’s father had close connections with coaches in Alaska from years of traveling west with his Yukon teams for tournaments. One of those coaches offered the young Hanson and some of his teammates a guest spot on a team for a tournament in Alaska.
Less than a year later, that same coach took a job with Crossfire Premier, a Seattle-based club with connections across the United States that often traveled for tournaments. And although that coach had moved south, he had not forgotten about Hanson.
“I guess I impressed him, and he got in contact with my dad and asked if I was interested in going to the San Diego Surf Cup with them,” Hanson said. “I said, ‘Yeah, of course!’”
That kicked off about a four-year period in which Hanson was repeatedly invited back to the United States for tournaments — despite the travel, the money and the distance from home.
But that couldn’t go on forever, leaving just one option.
“I remember I was around 12 and I was telling my dad,” Hanson recalled, “I think I probably can play at home for about one more year, then I’ve gotta move on to bigger things.”
At the tender age of 13, Hanson left Whitehorse and his family behind to move in with a host family in Seattle to pursue his dream: becoming a pro soccer player.
The road to Boise
Now that he was in the big city, it didn’t take long for Hanson to start impressing some of the more dominant clubs in the area. Before he’d turned 16, he received the call to return to Canada — this time, he wouldn’t be going quite as far as Whitehorse, but just making a quick jump over the border to play for the Vancouver Whitecaps.
Hanson joined the Vancouver Whitecaps Academy in August 2019, and by May 2021, he’d become the first-ever player from the Yukon to play with the Whitecaps’ under-23 team.
“There definitely was a big jump in (playing) level. But I was actually really lucky, I had a very strong group to play with in the Yukon,” Hanson said. “I was a kid, so I wasn’t thinking too much about the level, I was just going out there and playing.”
But the big moment came in March 2022: Hanson officially signed a professional contract with Whitecaps FC 2, establishing yet another first for a Yukon native. One month later, he scored his first professional goal — a curler off his left foot into the top corner — against Sporting Kansas City II.
“Signing a professional contract was obviously the goal, but to actually score a goal and to be playing, that really meant something to me,” Hanson said. “... I knew it was a very big deal to be the first to play professionally, but in my mind, I never doubted it was gonna happen.”
Hanson was signed by Valour FC in the Canadian Premier League in 2024, then hopped across the Atlantic Ocean for a season-long stint with Treaty United in the League of Ireland First Division. It was at Valour that he picked up the nickname “Yukon Joe,” which is still shouted today by AC Boise teammates.
“We were looking at different profiles and an agent I know quite well brought him to my attention,” Miller said when asked how he first came across Yukon Joe. “I felt like we were gonna have some experienced attackers, but (we wanted) someone we could help develop and get the most out of.”
Hanson is one of the youngest players on the squad. He’s made 11 appearances for the club this season, and despite not having yet scored, he played the crucial cross that led to an own goal in Boise’s 2-0 win over FC Naples on March 13.
The move perfectly encapsulated what Miller is trying to do with the 6-foot-3 Hanson. Rather than treat him as a tall target man with his back to the goal, as other teams have done in the past, he wants to use Hanson’s quick footwork and finishing touch to turn him into a player who can run into space and take on opponents.
“He’s got soft feet and likes to dribble, so he’s not what people think he is,” Miller said. “... I’m happy the early doors we kind of found a better role for him rather than playing back to goal.”
The change in style has even seen Hanson be deployed as a wingback, a position where Miller thinks Hanson could thrive once he learns the role a bit better and tightens up his defensive contributions.
Hanson said that the target man role never truly suited his abilities, and Miller’s plan to play him farther behind the ball and facing toward goal made AC Boise an “extremely attractive” location.
“One of the first days I was here, (Miller) pulled me aside and said he knew that I could do more than just be a hold-up player, and he recognized the ability I had to run with the ball, and even play in pockets,” Hanson said.
“I was really hoping to sign, and I knew it was going to be a good fit. So yeah, I’ve been enjoying every bit of the season.”
AC Boise’s season continues Wednesday night at home against the Richmond Kickers. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m.
