Boyer turned student job into a satisfying career started here when he was 15, washing towels and being a locker room attendant. He went away to school, and we brought him back. Another assistant, Adam, was here three years and just accepted the head equipment job at Penn State... You surround yourself with good people.” Boyer learned his trade during his five years with Lakers equipment manager Gil Somes. He also took his skills to the private sector and owns Precision Blades in Grosse Pte. Woods. In addition to skate sharpening and hockey equipment services, Precision Blades has a fitness center and synthetic ice, and hockey-specific professional training. In 2011, Boyer used his hockey connections to help his friend Frank McClelland, inventor of the Skate Fender, introduce his new product to the hockey world. The highly successful foot-protection prototype was designed at LSSU’s Product Development Center. (Read more at lssu.edu/ skatefenders) Boyer returned to Sault Ste. Marie last summer to take part in the 1991-92 national champion Laker hockey team reunion and LSSU Athletics Hall of Fame induction. He was thankful to reunite with Somes. “Lake State was a good learning tool and prepared me for a lot of stuff off the ice,” Boyer said. “Gil was a tremendous asset and showed me what it took the get the job done. He gave me the nuts and bolts of the job, and I’m very grateful to him for that. It was a blast to see him. He’s such a great guy. “I also learned a lot from Coaches Roque, Pooley, Jackson, Rolston. I learned the game inside the game, how to network yourself. I realized then that not everything will go your way, but if you make your own breaks, things will happen for you.” Boyer and his wife, Helen, are the parents of three children. Paul Boyer and Gil Somes in Taffy Abel Arena Detroit Red Wings fans with long-time ties to Laker hockey look forward to seeing a familiar face on the Red Wings’ bench season after season. During the games, one moment equipment manager Paul Boyer ’92 intently watches the on-ice action, and the next he scurries off to repair a skate or face shield, or replace a broken stick. Those 60 minutes of NHL flurry are often the calmest time of his day. The equipment manager’s job is a profession within a profession, and Boyer now has 20 years of experience in the field after getting his start as a student equipment manager at LSSU. “It’s been a good career,” Boyer said. “I am fortunate to work for the best team in the NHL. The Ilitches are great. I have a great boss in Ken Holland, who lets me do my job. And I report to another Laker, Paul MacDonald ‘81 (Red Wings vicepresident of finance).” Boyer, who joined the Detroit staff in 1994-1995 following one season with the New Jersey Devils, was with the Red Wings when they won the Stanley Cup in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008. He was also selected to work the 2002 NHL All-Star Game in Los Angeles. 12 “That first Cup will always be one of my fondest memories,” Boyer said. “It was a good feeling to win it after losing it in 1995. It’s what you play for. Mike Emrick put it best. He said during an NBC telecast, ‘You play for a ring that’s too big and to get your name on a trophy you can’t keep. That’s what you play for.’” Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg, Steve Yzerman, Brian Rolston, Doug Weight – some of the greatest NHL players in the game – are among Boyer’s closest friends. But Boyer takes equal pride in teaching the trade to equipment managers moving up the ranks. He served six years as president of the Society of Professional Hockey Equipment Managers. NCAA and minor pro teams follow the lead of the SPHEM. “We are still with the guys on the ice, and we all still sharpen skates, but we are spending more time on a computer now,” said Boyer of how the job has evolved. One of Boyer’s former employees is now the head equipment manager for the Florida Panthers, and another took a similar position at Penn State. “That’s a fun part, too, helping guys move into positions,” Boyer said. “My current assistant, John,