2.
There is a lot that goes into the success of a hockey team, and so much of it goes on behind the scenes. It's the people who are always the first at the rink and the last to leave. The ones whose job is just beginning when the plane lands on the road after players make their way into the hotels.
While everyone else is getting ready to sleep, the equipment staff is at the rink, right off the plane, in the middle of the night, setting up the locker room to make sure it's ready to go the next morning when players arrive. It could be 1 a.m., and they're headed to the rink. They're always the first to arrive and last to leave. They are machines.
They know each individual player's preferences and execute them to a T. They make sure visors are immaculately cleaned, they have unbelievable reflexes when a stick breaks mid-game, handing a new one to a player as they skate by at top speed.
They are the equipment managers. And the Devils have the very best, led by Chris 'Frosty' Scoppetto.
I just wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate Frosty on working his 2000th NHL last Friday.
2000!
That's a wild number.
Wherever we go with the team, somebody knows Frosty, and somebody is always asking for Frosty. He is one of the greatest people you'll ever meet, who treats everyone like a member of the team, so it's little surprise he is so well-liked league-wide.
Frosty has been working in the NHL since 1997 when he started with the then Pheonix Coyotes as an assistant equipment manager. He spent two years with the Coyotes before moving on to the Nashville Predators for six seasons. In 2005 Frosty joined the Detroit Red Wings where he won the Stanley Cup in in 2008 before taking his first head equipment manager job with the Florida Panthers until 2016 when he joined the Devils as an assistant. In 2017 he was named the Devils head equipment manager.
Congratulations on this milestone, Frost!
(He'll probably hate all this, because he's so low-key, but I refuse to let it fly under the radar!)