Equipment manager keeps Everblades in gear

You need only look at the name of the team to realize how important an equipment man is to the Florida Everblades.

Head Equipment Manager John Sellars minds the blades, the sticks, the pucks and much more for the team. It doesn’t take long for players to recognize his value.

“You definitely don’t want to get on his bad side because he’s in control of all your gear,” forward John McCarron said. “So I think it’s important to be buddy-buddy with the equipment guy.”

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Sellars doesn’t think he’s hard to get along with, but he does have one rule — with consequences for breaking it.

“I just tell them to clean up after themselves,” he said. “So, if they don’t clean up after themselves or leave their shoes around the locker room, I’ll take them and wrap them up in Saran Wrap a couple hundred times.”

It was no joke the day Sellars almost had to pull double-duty. He played goalie growing up and nearly got the chance again when the team was down both of its netminders.

“We were in Cincinnati on the road and our goalie flying in, his flight got canceled,” Sellars said. “I was going to have to start the game — our coach wasn’t joking.”

It didn’t wind up happening, but Sellars is content to stay off the ice.

“I love interacting with the players (and) the coaching staff,” he said. “When you love doing what you do, you don’t work in a day in your life.”