by Stephen Meserve | AHL On The Beat
Charlie Kaser’s love for hockey began almost as soon as he could walk.
“I remember my first steps being on the ice,” Charlie said. “There’s a photo of me standing in the goal crease, trying to reach up to the crossbar with a stick in my hand. Those are my first memories, just always being at the rink.”
It would be hard for hockey not to have embedded itself in the heart of the Texas Stars’ head equipment manager. His father is longtime Grand Rapids Griffins broadcaster Bob Kaser, a legend of the American Hockey League in his own right.
“There are sacrifices to be made when you do this, especially when you’re traveling,” Bob said during a recent visit to Cedar Park. “You’re gone for 65-70 nights a year. On the flip side of that, we got so much good out of the experiences my boys got being around the game of hockey.”
Charlie concurred, “On those longer road trips, where they’re gone six or 10 days, you’re like, ‘Oh man, I miss him.’
“But the second he got back and we were at the rink skating, and have a whole 10,000-seat building to yourself with just you and your brother on the ice, just messing around on a weekday after school, you forget about all that. This is such a unique childhood that not a lot of people get to experience.”
Growing up so intimately connected to a professional franchise, Charlie got to experience all the aspects of a pro team. His dad’s role in the broadcast booth was interesting, but it wasn’t what he gravitated toward.
“I think the closest thing we ever got was a great picture at home with both my boys in the broadcast booth in Kansas City with the headsets on,” said Bob, who did play-by-play for the IHL’s Kansas City Blades for 10 years before joining the Griffins in 2000. “But that was the closest to broadcasting that either one of them would ever get.”
After his aspirations of playing professionally himself melted away as they do for so many youth players, Charlie started to become interested in the equipment side of things.
“I would go on road trips, a quick one-gamer to Chicago or an overnighter to Rockford or Milwaukee, and think ‘Man, I really want to go help,’ as crazy as that sounds. Why would you want to do manual labor at two in the morning after you’re on a bus? I always found it fun. If this is how I can be a part of a team and help the team win, this is perfect.”
After spending time as a stick boy before college, Charlie returned from his studies to join Grand Rapids fulltime as an assistant equipment manager under Brad Thompson – affectionately known by most as “Dogg” – who has been with the Griffins for all but their first year of existence.
“Charlie could not have possibly worked for anyone better than Dogg,” said Bob. “Not just learning the ropes in the business, but the way to treat players and the way to treat people and fans.
“I told Charlie to watch him closely while you’re working for him. Watch the way he deals with people and the players. That’s where you’re gonna wind up looking back and recognizing that was the most important part of it.”
Fans only see a fraction of what an equipment manager is responsible for. The skills required to be a head equipment manager are vast. You have to be an excellent skate sharpener, precise with a sewing machine, fanatical about logistics, an expert jet set traveler and, the part most fans never see, have the interpersonal skills to be the glue of the locker room.
“What they don’t see is that they’re the gatekeepers in the locker room,” said Texas Stars general manager Scott White. “Medical guys and equipment guys are usually the first guys the players see. Charlie’s always got a good demeanor about him. Every day is a good day.
“It’s a grind. It’s a hard job. People don’t understand how hard it is. He always keeps a good, positive outlook on things, regardless of what the team’s going through, what the practice week or travel week looks like. It doesn’t faze him.”
Bob recognizes that the mixture of demands can be a tough combination. Getting in, he noted, was the easy part. Staying in is the hard part.
“In this business, if you don’t have what it takes to cater to these guys and make sure that they’ve got everything they need, then you can get eaten up and spit out pretty quickly.”
Charlie’s first day as a full-time assistant for the Griffins, coincidentally, came at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park, an away game to open the 2018-19 AHL season.
“We hadn’t gotten our assistant captains or anything else yet,” Charlie recalled. “They named it pretty much the day of the game.” With hours to go before gametime, Charlie needed to put A’s and C’s on three jerseys for opening night with just one issue.
“I had never really sewn.”
Amid the chaos of Game 1, a patient Thompson taught Charlie how to thread the bobbin and all the intricacies of making the jerseys look crisp for opening night. That was the first of many lessons that he would learn from his five years in Grand Rapids as an assistant. How do you deal with a last minute callup? How do you manage when you forget something on the road? How do you fix something you messed up on? Something someone else messed up on? And how do you do all of that without an ounce of panic or worry to the outside world?
“A lot of times, players, coaches, other staff, they turn to trainers and equipment guys, as rocks of the organization to help steady the ship a little bit, to be that constant. We’re going to stay even-keeled throughout this whole thing. And just show that there’s no panic.”
Outside of the daily grind of being an assistant equipment manager, Charlie was able to forge an even deeper connection with his dad on road trips and around the rink with the Griffins.
“It was making up for lost time being away for so long,” said Bob. “And I remember that first year when he was on the bus. Every now and then I would look across the aisle, he’d sit right across from me, and it was so bizarre.”
The elder Kaser is a rink nerd at heart. His favorite memories of their time as colleagues were visits to all the places that he would have to go while leaving young Charlie at home. Charlie would often ask, “What’s it like where you are?” Now Bob could show him.
“To be able to work with my dad, you can’t ask for much better than that. Going to all these different cities felt like a full circle moment a little bit. All this hard work has paid off. Being able to go through my first years in hockey with him, there’s experiences there you can’t really dream up.”
It was also helpful to have the outside perspective on challenges that he faced.
“It really helped me, because he sees a different side of it and that helped me in terms of how I conducted myself. It was something very special. Something I’ll cherish forever, being able to say I was able to work with him and work for our hometown team with him.”
Five years in Grand Rapids came to an end with a call from Nick Lazor, the former head equipment manager for the Texas Stars. Lazor would be moving up to Dallas, and his role was opening. He wanted to know: did Charlie want his recommendation?
“It definitely wasn’t an easy decision. I think at the time I was ready to move on. I was ready to take the reins of my own team.”
The location also felt right for Kaser, who saw some stars-aligning signs in the team that had reached out. Dennis Soetart, Dallas’ head equipment manager, had worked with Bob in Kansas City when Charlie was born. Former Grand Rapids GM and Detroit assistant GM Jim Nill now leads the Dallas Stars. And Grand Rapids was still in the division, so he could go back and visit four times a year. It all felt like the right place to be for his first head job.
“We’re so proud beyond words of him,” said a beaming Bob Kaser. “If someone would have told me when he was in college that your son would be a head equipment manager in the AHL by the time he was 30 years old, I would have said, with all the respect to Charlie, no chance. It takes a grown up young man to deal with it. He has matured so quickly; he fits right in with these guys.”
“It’s like he’s been doing it for years,” said White. “The guys like him. He understands how to manage the business side of it, stuff that people don’t really understand. He communicates well with the players, communicates well with the staff.”
Texas head coach Neil Graham also heaped praise on the young Kaser, who is now in his second year with Texas.
“He’s a huge part of the culture of our team. He has a good attitude every day. He’s upbeat. He never complains about anything. You think travel is tough on us as coaches and players? Those guys are here earlier. They stay later. We’re so grateful for what he does.
It’s clear that Charlie has the right mindset about how he can help the team. He repeats a mantra learned from his time in Grand Rapids: “Most of the time I’m not going to be able to make you a better hockey player, but by the time you leave, I know I can make you a better person.”
After a morning skate with Grand Rapids visiting Texas back in December, Stars’ players went out of their way to introduce themselves to Bob and praise his son’s work as they came off the ice.
“I can’t thank this organization enough for the way they’ve treated Charlie and the way they’ve welcomed him,” Bob said. “It’s given me and my wife Rosalie such peace. All the feedback we’re getting from the players, the coaching staff, Jim Nill, they all praise Charlie and say he’s going to write his own ticket to the NHL whenever he wants to do that.”
Stephen Meserve is the editor of 100 Degree Hockey, which has covered the Texas Stars since their inaugural season.
Stephen Meserve is the editor of 100 Degree Hockey, which has covered the Texas Stars since their inaugural season.