The brotherhood of equipment managers in college hockey, particularly in the NCHC, is one reason that Nick Meldrum and his peers are able to keep their heads above water during a season that officially begins in October and can extend into April.

“We’re fortunate in the NCHC that we’re all pretty close,” says Meldrum, who is embarking upon his 10th season gearing up the Pioneers. “We’re never going to say, ‘Oh, that sucks that didn’t show up for you. Well, hopefully it does.’ If there is anything happens to get lost or broken we’re going to step up and help each other out because that’s what we’re here for.”

Equipment orders and repairs, coordinating the departure and arrival of gear, the perpetual art of skate sharpening and a never-ending stream of laundry keep the Denver hockey equipment manager and his student assistants on their toes. Factor in that they also provide what amounts to a full concierge service for Magness Arena’s hockey guests, and, well, you get the picture.

Meldrum gave Magness Mayhem further insight into how he keeps and thrives in a fast-paced schedule.

Home sweet home

The beauty of Meldrum’s job is it’s always changing. Some components of his job are standard – skates, laundry and ensuring equipment is clean and remains protective. Other parts are more fluid.

“A Monday of a home series, you’re getting caught up from the weekend. Finish putting stuff away or cleaning it up, hanging up jerseys, repairing jerseys, repairing socks, fulfilling any stick requests from Saturday night, depending on what happened,” he says. “Just getting your life back in order after the chaos of the weekend.”

Meldrum said he particularly enjoys the repairs, going one-on-one with a sewing machine. The quiet solitude, as much as anything, is appreciated when he considers what’s on the horizon.

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Part 1 of Keeping the Pioneers well equipped

Go inside with the Pioneers for a weekend series

DU’s practices typically are during the early afternoon, a huge benefit for Meldrum, a father of two young children, because that allows him to get home by a decent hour most weeknights to spend time with his wife and daughters. Aside from game nights, the other later night can be Thursday, when he and his assistants aid the visiting team, which typically will arrive Thursday and skate in the late afternoon.

“We’re in charge of logistics for them, with the laundry and stuff like that,” he says. “Once they arrive, we make sure they get moved into their locker room as easily as possible, then they skate, we do their laundry, get them set up for Friday’s morning skate.

“In the meantime, myself and my student managers are prepping for our Friday. We’re sharpening skates for the guys who want that done before the pregame skate, getting the room ready for the pregame skate and getting stuff together for the coaches.

“Thursday is a pretty busy day.”

Fridays and Saturdays also are long days, and it’s not unusual for Friday’s shift to span 18 hours and Saturday’s to approach that.

After the Pioneers take their morning skate on Friday, Meldrum and Co. generally repeat the process from Thursday for both teams. That means laundry, restocking the dressing rooms, and in the case of DU’s players, making sure all equipment is repaired and ensuring everyone has plenty of sticks at the ready.

Meldrum has developed a list, “a long list”, for his student managers, it includes cleaning helmets and visors, polishing them and an array of laundry tasks.

“Once game time comes, everything is pretty much running itself,” Meldrum says. “Now if a guy loses an edge we’re fortunate that Bauer has the new trigger system on their holders and we’re popping steel and putting a new set in. Usually the senior student manager is sharpening skates by that point in their career. Or (associate director of equipment room operations) John Mead. We send them back to the room, they sharpen them and within 5-10 minutes, depending on how bad the damage is, the second set is out to the bench in case something happens again. We’ve got a pretty good system.”

His watchful eyes aren’t geared only toward gear, however. Ever-present on the bench during games, Meldrum keeps a close eye on the Pioneers and their opponent, often telling coaches about a particular matchup or line change, information he says they welcome.

When the final horn sounds for the Pioneers, they’re ready to begin their descent from the mountain of competition. For Meldrum and his team, there’s another peak to scale, another period to go.

“Once the game’s over, we get the guys out of their jerseys as quickly as possible because we’re doing both teams’ laundry again, restocking both locker rooms with whatever they need for the next day and doing it all over again on Saturday,” he adds.

“Usually the teams leave right after Saturday night, or at least load their buses, because most of them have an early flight out Sunday. … Sunday is kind of our day of rest, get the breather, get to sleep a little more.”

Taking the show on the road

If the weeks of the season when the schedule sends the Pioneers on the road seem shorter, there is a good reason for that.

“For a road trip week, it’s just a shortened week,” Meldrum says. “Monday and Tuesday I’m starting to get everything prepared for travel, Wednesday is a final look over everything. Thursday morning we’re flying out.

“We fly commercial, so everything has got to be under 50 pounds. Most player bags with everything dry, everything they need in it is about 35 – 37 pounds. Then guys will throw some personal items in there to take it right up to that 45- to 50-pound mark.”

It could be worse. Not every league provides the reciprocal services that the NCHC teams do.

“In the NCHC we’re very fortunate, we take care of each other, especially equipment guys and athletic training staff, very well,” he says. “We don’t have to fly as much stuff. We don’t have to fly with glove dryers anymore, we don’t have to fly with sharpeners any more. We provide it for each other. Tape we provide for each other. Soap, shampoo, toiletries, all that stuff. So it’s lightened up the load a lot as opposed to some other places where you still have to bring all that stuff.”

When the games become more pressure-packed for the players, the responsibilities for the equipment staff take on a new dimension as well. Meldrum’s prep time and the volume of what he has to take along increases substantially.

“When we go to the national tournament and the NCHC playoffs they can’t provide all that stuff, so we have to fly it all in,” he says. “It can get expensive, so that’s why flying charter flights are pretty awesome. If the stuff goes out on the equipment truck it’s going on the plane, plain and simple.”

There are other pitfalls with flying commercially, something the Pioneers had reinforced during last November’s trip to Western Michigan. They had to make due without sticks for their Thursday practice at Kalamazoo.

“Sometimes that happens,” Meldrum says. “You learn how to deal with it.

“(Last season) we only a couple of times we had missing items. We were pretty fortunate, either by our practice or especially by the pregame skate the next morning we would have everything for the players.”

The rewards

Do any job long enough and you can begin to mark events of your life by its “season”; it’s no different for Meldrum and his peers. One of his daughters was born just after the conclusion of a WCHA Final Five, for example.

The 70-hour weeks, the travel, the time away from family are easier to take when the reward are so plentiful, Meldrum says.

“The relationships. It goes back to the Denver hockey family,” he says. “I love it here. It’s a great family atmosphere.”

And that extends beyond the groups of players Meldrum has worked in his time at the university.

“I made a lot of relationships with former players who come back and train here,” he says. “It’s awesome. Just seeing the guys have success and move on to pro careers or the business world.

“Seeing these guys getting married and starting families, seeing them grow up, it’s fun to see.

“I’m very fortunate in the way we get to run things here. The way we do things at Denver, some schools aren’t as fortunate as we are.”

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