How NHL equipment managers prepare for a game
The Washington Capitals’ equipment staff hauled nearly 4,300 pounds of gear across the border for a game against the Montreal Canadiens last week. That included bags full of sticks and helmets, a skate sharpener, a portable ultrasound system, a sewing machine, a custom stereo and a box of Splenda, the sweetener Coach Peter Laviolette prefers in his coffee.
No detail was considered too small — staffers had center Nic Dowd try his helmet on after noticing he got a haircut — and they stood ready on the bench as the puck dropped Thursday night. When forward Tom Wilson shattered his stick on his first shift, he didn’t need to come off the ice. Within seconds, a replacement stick was hanging midair over the boards via an equipment staffer, and Wilson simply picked it up in-stride as he caught up to a loose puck.
“They’re the unsung heroes,” Wilson said of the Capitals’ equipment crew, but he also could have been talking about any of the other 31 staffs across the NHL. Perhaps more than in any other professional sport, equipment teams must work in concert to transport, set up and maintain thousands of pounds of gear over an 82-game schedule. The product on the ice relies on that collaboration and seamless execution of never-ending tasks.
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“The old phrase goes: The war is on the ice; it’s not off the ice,” said Brock Myles, the Capitals’ equipment manager. “There is a lot that goes into it behind the scenes that you don’t realize. But the whole goal is to make sure the whole thing runs smooth, it looks professional and the players are safe.”
Myles is always looking to hone his craft. During the offseason, he’s helped visiting Major League Baseball teams unload gear at Nationals Park just to catch a peek at their process. He spent 11 years and nearly 1,000 games as an equipment manager in the minor leagues before latching on with the Capitals, where he has spent the past 16 seasons. And he’s a proud member of the Society of Professional Hockey Equipment Managers (SPHEM), which boasts hundreds of representatives from every level of the sport. Every year, they hold a convention alongside the Professional Hockey Athletic Trainers Society. The community not only offers support and builds relationships — members will often text each other looking for gear for their teams and find an overnighted shipment on their front door the next day — but also educates equipment managers about evolving trends in their profession.
“Everything has changed. … The players are more in tune now with what they’re wearing,” said Darren Granger, the Los Angeles Kings’ equipment manager who also serves as the president of SPHEM. “We all respect what we do. We all rely on each other.”
Home teams must follow a standardized list of hosting requirements; it includes providing table saws to cut sticks and exhaust for skate sharpeners. Every day, teams across the league open up their equipment rooms to help rivals: Granger’s staff assisted a visiting team as it made a uniform for a newly acquired player at the trade deadline this year. Before a game last week, the Nashville Predators brought extra gear to Winnipeg for a player they had traded to the Jets earlier this season. That is standard across the league.
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“I don’t believe the camaraderie exists in the other sports, just from friends I know that have come to our meetings that are in other sports and are kind of blown away,” said Pete Rogers, the Predators’ equipment manager and a SPHEM board member. “It’s really a unique bond that the trainers and equipment managers all have. Everyone pitches in to help.”
For the Capitals, this season presented its own set of challenges. With the team selling off players at the trade deadline for the first time since 2007, the equipment staff braced for every possible scenario. To complicate matters, the Capitals were on an extended road trip in California at the time. So the equipment staff prepared as if Washington would add multiple new players — and brought three brands of gear those players might be sponsored by: Bauer, CCM and Warrior. The team acquired defenseman Rasmus Sandin from the Toronto Maple Leafs while in Anaheim; Sandin, who wears Warrior gear, arrived that night to a locker filled with new pants, gloves and helmets. “He didn’t ask for a thing,” Myles said.
Other times, the staff had to improvise on the fly. Earlier this month, the team needed a backup goalie on a day’s notice and signed Harvard University’s Mitchell Gibson to a tryout contract. The only problem: He didn’t have a uniform. The equipment team didn’t have time to order one from its supplier in Rockford, Ill. — so within a few hours, staffer Cameron Parker grabbed a blank red home jersey and hand-stitched the letters and numbers onto it. Gibson was also given a hand-prepared warmup jersey with the team’s cherry blossom design.
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“That’s what separates the great ones from the good ones — the details,” Dowd said. “Without them, the NHL doesn’t function as it does.”
Myles and his staff settled in at Bell Centre in Montreal last week with help from the Canadiens’ staff, but he could point to any trip this season when that was the case. When the Capitals arrived in Tampa well after midnight for the second of back-to-back games late last month, players and coaches loaded buses bound for a hotel. Myles and his crew had another ride — the Lightning had sent a box truck to pick them up along with all of the Capitals’ gear.
Together, staffers from both teams grabbed the equipment from the charter plane and loaded the truck. Then they all crammed in and caught up as they drove to Amalie Arena in the middle of the night to set up for the game.
“We have a great relationship behind the scenes because all we want to do together is help make sure the game is run smoothly, the players are safe and have everything they need,” Myles said. “And then the show is on the ice.”
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