By: George Babcock, Assistant Equipment Manager, Buffalo Sabres

The NHL Truck Driver is a difficult job to land, with only 32 teams! It is an arduous job itself, with long hours and very strenuous work, as the amount of equipment teams carry now is vast. The pressure to be organized and punctual is immense. With logistics, traffic, and weather being major factors, you must always stay one step ahead!

We have several rookies this year, and they have their work cut out for them learning the ropes. In addition to the other aspects mentioned, there’s locker room and ice availability in each NHL city, which is paramount for equipment managers. Most NHL teams have off-site practice facilities due to NBA and event conflicts in their home arenas. That often creates off-site practices for NHL visiting clubs, which then creates many transfers via truck!

These guys work long hours on home stands and are burning the candle at both ends handling the parent clubs and the visiting NHL teams. They’re keeping the gas tanks full and the washer fluid topped off as winter is just around the corner!

The Venerable Keith Hayes, Buffalo Sabres

Welcome aboard to the following members!

By Chris McKeage, Assistant Equipment Manager, Toronto Maple Leafs

Another NHL trade deadline has come and gone. This year, our schedule had us (the Toronto Maple Leafs) on a three-game trip to Las Vegas, Denver, and Utah.

In preparation for the deadline on the road, we typically pack hockey bags with extra stock gear from all our suppliers, hoping it will cover us until we return home. With this year’s deadline falling on a Friday, we didn’t have the luxury of shipping in extra gear from Toronto, so as a staff, we made sure to cover all our bases while packing. It was important to have a variety of models and sizes from all vendors.

Our team made three moves at the deadline – sending two players out and adding two to our group. After packing up the gear, steel, laundry, shoes/sandals, and other personal items for the players heading to Pittsburgh, we shifted our focus to the two new additions. One player from Philadelphia and another from Boston. We worked with the other team’s staff to gather equipment and sizing information, getting a jump on their arrival in Denver later that night.

Once jersey numbers are assigned, it’s my job to crest the sweaters. We have the option to do this in-house, or, if time allows, we’ll sometimes use a local vendor. In this case, we were fortunate that only minor modifications were needed to get our new players ready for the game against the Avs. Both players will use stock gear until their custom equipment arrives.

Being one of the teams that uses the Elite Sharpening System, we’ll profile and sharpen each player’s new steel to their liking once we return home. Luckily, Colorado also uses the Elite machine, so we were able to sharpen each player’s existing set of blades from their respective teams, setting us up for the final game of the trip in Utah. In a pinch we could also use our Elite portable and sharpen the blades by hand if needed.

Ultimately, our goal is to provide the best possible service and a seamless transition for both the players leaving our group and our new additions. Another deadline in the books.

By George Babcock
Assistant Equipment Manager
Buffalo Sabres

The Shotblocker.  We all know hockey players are tough and especially penalty killers. Worst thing is blocking a shot whether it be with the shin pad or off the skate. The technology being used by the individual stick brands means just about 75% of all players are capable of a 90+mph shot. We all know the importance of keeping the players protected and there are several great companies out there with easily applied skate protection now.  Askja, CustomSW, NSM, Nash, Shotblockers.com & True.

At the NHL/AHL level although more expensive than in house production this outweighs losing players/man games due to injury. Through the years the evolution of the Shotblocker has evolved from leather over plastic with buckles and straps to graphites, kydex, foam and high-end adhesives.

The early stages of equipment managers using these products was an “Arts and Crafts” time consuming scenario.  Making skate specific patterns, cutting them out after tracing, heating and molding, then applying 3m adhesive that needed to be also traced and cut. We all know after making these we would always need a backup set which would extend arts and crafts into late afternoons “insert Hal from Happy Gilmour.”

We are grateful to the engineers that produced these now easily ordered and applied products that can be applied to a skate in minutes to make our job easier. We can now order these skate specific and player custom easily applied Shotblockers in bulk and have always had them on hand for new applications or replacements after damage. Take advantage of these products to keep your players protected and save valuable time doing it!

Photos courtesy of George Babcock

By Ian Cox, Assistant Equipment Manager, Ottawa Senators

Like everything in our world today, technology advances have influenced our game, and jobs a ton. As equipment managers we have seen many significant advances in recent times.

Beginning a few seasons ago, the SMT tracking system was introduced which has provided significant data to our staffs, the League, and fans of the game through the television broadcasts.

From an equipment manager standpoint, it is another responsibility that is on our plate, but with the help of our uniform partners SMT and the League, they have made it as simple as possible for us given we already have a lot on our plates. As well as the player tracking, we now have similar technology in the pucks which once again gives us and the fans a lot of really cool data to learn from and enhance the viewers experience. Much like the player tracking this has been a very simple transition and not much has changed for us as far as managing the pucks.

More important than this however is the advances in equipment technology. This has made our lives easier while making the game safer for the players. Many manufacturers are now using 3D printing to make custom helmet liners for players and soon goalies. It has really caught on and more and more players are beginning to use it with great feedback.

Secondly to the helmets, the scanning technology used for custom fitting skates has been a great success. I think most will agree that we are punching, stretching and modifying far less skates now and the fit has been more consistent since this fitting technology was introduced.

As much as some of this has added to our daily to day tasks, I also feel it has saved us time in other areas. It’s been exciting to watch this evolve so quickly in front of our eyes. I have no doubt this will trickle down to all levels now that it’s been established, which is great for everyone, especially when it makes the game safer. As usual, the cohesion and teamwork of our group, equipment partners and respective leagues has made this work as easily as it has. We are all excited to see what comes next.

All photos courtesy of Ian Cox.

By Ian Cox, Assistant Equipment Manager, Ottawa Senators

For this newsletter, we decided to do something a little different.

We recently posted some pictures of a broken toe cap repair on Instagram which garnered a lot of interest from people.  I will go a little more in depth on how we did the repair. 

To set the scene, we were on the road, (of course haha) in San Jose. The skate belonged to a player that was new to us and didn’t have a second pair of skates at that point, so we really had to scramble.

First off, this isn’t a common repair for us as players get into new skates fairly frequently before things break down. It was sink or swim so first off, we had to find a matching toe cap. Mike and Vinny to the rescue, they had a player with the same model Skate that they could part with.

From there, the actual repair was easier than expected. There are two rivets in the sides that pop out with the machine, the side stitching and the tongue can be sliced.

From there the cap pops off relatively easy.   After that, we just repeated the steps, glued the bottom lip of the cap, slid it on, stitched the sides and replaced the side rivets.

Lastly, sewed the tongue back in and that was it! Honestly this was easier than it looks, it was the first time for us as I mentioned earlier.

If anyone has any other questions on how we did it or anything else repair wise, we are happy to answer any questions.

All photos courtesy of Ian Cox.

By Ian Cox, Assistant Equipment Manager, Ottawa Senators

As I write this it was almost two years to the day that the hockey world was first affected by Covid. We played in Los Angeles and before the game the news broke that there were positive cases in the NBA. We knew that was it. The next morning, we sat on the tarmac as a decision was being made as to what happens next. We flew home early, ending the trip and the whirlwind began. What we all thought would be a few weeks, maybe a month turned into years.

Over this period of time and with the continuous curveballs we have been thrown it’s been so impressive how our entire group has continued to adapt and keep the show running while most of all keeping our players safe. More than ever, we have had to work together and lean on each other during this time. Bubbles, taxi squads, stuck inside hotels, empty buildings, supply chain issues, masks, do it yourself locker room stalls, I could go on.

We have all been affected in a multitude of ways, as a team and individually. Every day was a new challenge, and everyone handled it like we do every time we are faced with a challenge…by finding a solution.

While this isn’t so much an equipment article as much as it is a shout out to everyone for their hard work through the past few seasons. As we look towards our first in person meetings in two years which I am sure hoping is a sign of a return to “normal” it seemed like a good time to reflect on everything we have gone through together in the past few years and say thank you to everyone for what they have done to get us back to this point, let’s all hope this finally is the light the end of the tunnel.