By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Lewiston Maineiacs training camp invitee Richard Cappadocia clutched his calf and limped off the ice during an intrasquad game last week.

There to meet him was the team’s athletic therapist, Tom Bourdon. Bourdon instructed Cappadocia to lay back and started prodding the fallen skater for information as quickly as the language barrier would allow.

The verdict?

A skate blade had sliced the back of Cappadocia’s leg, and the right wing likely needed stitches.

No problem for Bourdon, who keeps a kit handy at all times.

“It’s not actually stitches,” said Bourdon. “If a player has a minor cut that might require stitches between periods, I have a way (which he would not disclose) to patch them up and get them out on the ice. It makes my job that much easier when I have the tools necessary to do the job right.”

While Cappadocia’s training camp dreams ended there, the weekend, and the season, were just starting for Bourdon.

“It’s been easy so far because of all the planning,” said Bourdon, “but there’s a long season ahead.”

Learning on the fly

Two years ago, Bourdon was thrown into the fire.

“I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off,” said Bourdon. “I was everywhere and doing everything at once. Last year, it was better, and this year camp started well.”

This year, the staff has allowed Bourdon not only to use his treatment room, but to spread out and use the team’s cavernous locker room to set up training tables as well.

“The first year, it was all new to me, so that added to the chaos,” said Bourdon. “Last year, there was a coaching change, and things got done differently. But this year, we had everyone coming back the same, so two weeks before training camp started I knew exactly what I needed.

“The whole key is preparation. A good cook can’t be a good cook without doing all of the prep work that goes into preparing a meal.

“If the prep work is no good, how can the end product be any good? It can’t.”

Plenty to do

Like in the situation with Cappadocia, Bourdon has to be ready at all games in case a player needs immediate medical attention.

“We spend 30 or more hours up at the draft each year,” said Bourdon. “All of the league’s trainers go through a ton of scenarios, just in case. Some things, like maybe a kid gets a puck in the throat, you may never see, or maybe you see it once in your life, but you have to be ready to react in case something like that does happen.”

The other side of Bourdon’s job that people rarely see makes him sound more like a locker room parent than a trainer.

He launders all of the socks and jerseys, arranges all of the sticks for all of the players, purchases all of the team-issued equipment and makes sure the players are feeling well before, during and after all team-related activities.

“You hate to make the comparison,” said Maineiacs head coach and general manager Clem Jodoin, “but a hockey player is like a car, and sometimes they need repairs.

“It’s Tom and his staff’s job to make sure they get back and healthy as fast as they can, but security of the players is always first.”

“I am the only person in the league right now doing both jobs,” said Bourdon. “The job is demanding and it’s a lot of hours.”

Bourdon tried to add up his hours for the year, but stopped well short.

“You know,” Bourdon said, “if you add up all of my hours during the year and extend them out through the summer, I still think I work more hours in a year than people working all 52 weeks.”

Bourdon does have a staff during training camp, which includes Jamey Bourgoin and high schoolers Kyle Kyllonen and Jake Brown, but that luxury ends at the beginning of the regular season.

“Kyle is the boss and Tom listens,” joked Jodoin. “It happens that way sometimes.”

Clark and Kyllonen will be back in school, and Bourgoin will be busy running the new full-service pro shop and skate sharpening facility at the Colisee.

He will be at every home game to help with the equipment, though.

Still, Bourdon doesn’t mind the extra work.

“The perks, though,” said Bourdon, “the traveling to different areas in Canada, being around sports and being with the guys, with the coaching staff, that is what makes it all worth it. I get to get up every day and go to a job that I love to do.”