How a minor-league equipment manager became a beloved 'heart-and-soul' piece of the Red Wings

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Todd Nelson was feeling the heat.

It was 2015, and the first year as head coach of the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins was out to a 2-8-1 start. For a team that had gone to the conference finals the previous season, that came with a lot of pressure, and it was getting to him.

So, the team’s longtime equipment manager, Brad “Dogg” Thompson came to him with an idea.

“Come with me,” Thompson told him. “We’re gonna go ride the motorcycles today.”

The Griffins won their next 15 straight games.

“He just wanted to get my mind off the game,” Nelson said. “And it was one of the best things that could have happened.”

Riding motorcycles has nothing to do with Thompson’s job as the team’s head equipment manager. But that intuition to help get Nelson out of his head captures the ways Thompson — who on Sunday will work his 2,000th regular season game for the Griffins — has transcended the specifics of his role and become something more. He’s an essential figure for Red Wings prospects on their way to the NHL.

“A heart-and-soul guy,” Red Wings forward Michael Rasmussen said. “He obviously does his job so well, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what he brings there.”

Thompson has seen the Griffins grow from an idea to a Grand Rapids institution.

The West Michigan lifer can still remember the first announcement that the city would get a professional hockey team in 1996 and thinking: “Whoa, this is elite. I need to be part of this.”

He went to the first-ever Griffins game that year and sat in Section 112.

“And then after that, the second year,” he said, “I was on the bench.”

Indeed, Thompson’s chance to join the Griffins found him fast. He was working at Patterson Ice Center, a community rink on the city’s southeast side, when his bosses at the rink heard through the Griffins’ then-athletic trainer that the team needed someone to help out. The bosses told the trainer about a rink rat they had working for them, a kid named Brad. He was in. Thompson showed up for the first time on his birthday.

He would go to class at Grand Rapids Community College, where he was studying criminal justice, then leave to go set up the dressing room. That first year, in 1997-98, he even remembers flying home from road games in Houston and Cleveland to take his final exams. Four years later, he was the team’s head equipment manager.

“I wanted to do it,” Thompson said. “Nothing was stopping me. You know what I mean? So I just found a way to do it and worked in the summer, and here I am today.”

He got his nickname, “Dogg,” from a former Griffins’ captain, Ed Patterson, who just walked up to Thompson one day and told him. Patterson knew Thompson liked rap music and that Snoop Dogg was one of the big rappers of the moment. Thus, “Dogg” was born, and he’s been a staple ever since.

In fact, only six current members of the organization have been with the team as long as Thompson, the team says. Two of them are the owners.

“If you think of GR,” Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider said, “I think that’s one of the first names that should pop in your head.”

Thompson has been a bridge for the team between different coaching staffs, but also two entirely different leagues (the now-defunct International Hockey League and the AHL). He’s even been part of two different NHL pipelines. When he started out in 1997, the Griffins were affiliated with the Ottawa Senators. Now, they’re the beating heart of player development for the Red Wings.

Thompson’s job as head equipment manager is one thing. He’s responsible for making sure players have what they need to perform, and all the usual duties that come with that: sharpening skates, ordering gear, transporting it all around the AHL circuit and unloading it at all hours of the night.

But ask anyone who’s come through Grand Rapids — especially those now in the NHL — and you’ll hear the same refrain.

“Looking back, as an 18-year-old coming over (from Europe) for the first time, he was — not like a dad figure, but almost that,” Seider said. “I feel like (he) just made it such an easy and smooth transition for all the young guys to adjust, get warm with North America and kind of get into like a groove, just focusing on playing hockey. He took care of everything else.”

Like Seider, Red Wings defenseman Simon Edvinsson was just a teenager when he first came to Grand Rapids from his native Sweden. The sixth pick in the 2021 draft, he was already an elite NHL defense prospect and had proven his ability to play pro hockey for Frölunda in the Swedish Hockey League.

But the AHL was a new league, with a different style of play in a different environment. And he had to face it all without any of the familiar comforts of home.

“I, myself, always strive to be better — to be perfect,” Edvinsson said. “And sometimes that might get a little bit too hard on myself. And (Thompson) saw that, and basically (said), ‘Calm down, you’re young, you’re going to learn.’”

There is nothing easy about trying to make the NHL, especially for young players who may be living alone for the first time. So, for an NHL team like the Red Wings, how easily those prospects are able to assimilate in a place like Grand Rapids — and focus on playing and developing — is a huge deal.

“He’s a bit of a dad, bit of a brother, bit of everything,” said Griffins assistant coach Brian Lashoff, a longtime Griffins and Red Wings defenseman who finished his career as Grand Rapids’ captain. “I think throughout the years — I mean, I’ve obviously known him for 15 years now at this point — and the one thing he does is he helps young guys get acclimated.”

Early in Thompson’s career, he saw Senators prospect Petr Schastlivy go through that process as a young Russian around his same age. Thompson watched as Schastlivy took English lessons to try and break down the language barrier and help his assimilation. Schastlivy would come to Thompson’s men’s league hockey games, they would have dinner together, and Thompson would even bring him to his house, to “make him feel comfortable and happy to be here,” Thompson said.

As Thompson progressed, going from an assistant equipment manager at that time to the head job starting in 2001, that only grew. He and former goaltender Tom McCollum formed what Thompson called a “dinner club” on road trips, taking a young player out to dinner to get to know them better.

“We’d pull up into Milwaukee, and we’d be like, ‘All right Anthony Mantha, you’re coming with us to dinner, you can’t say no,’” Thompson said. “Or, ‘(Filip) Hronek, let’s go, you’re coming with us. … We’d just sit there and talk to them and have an adult conversation instead of getting the pucks deep and being faster and stronger. … Try to learn people.”

Sitting down with Thompson, it’s easy to understand how he connects with players. Behind his trademark long beard — which the Griffins will honor in the form of a “Dogg” bearded Chia Pet giveaway on Sunday — he’s an easygoing character who is disarming with his candor and authenticity.

“He’s a goofball,” Lashoff said. “He’s funny. He’s a laid-back personality but he’ll also crack the whip on you, which I think is good. Which goes to that being kind of a dad, brother kind of thing. … He’ll laugh with you, joke around with you, but if he feels you’re slipping in anything, he’ll let you know. And I think that’s a good thing to have, on and off the ice.”

For some players, Thompson can be a voice of reassurance or an ear for topics they don’t feel comfortable talking about with their coach or teammates. But to Lashoff’s point, others may not know they need his feedback. Picture a hot-shot prospect straight out of junior hockey who needs a little bit of humbling. Perhaps he’s put out by something as simple as being asked to sign autographs.

“At the end of the day, that guy (asking for an autograph is) the one sitting in the stands paying $25 for (a) ticket so you can do this and not be in an office grinding it with paperwork,” Thompson will tell them. “I just try to give them a different view on stuff.”

“I think that’s the biggest thing: He’s a guy that can tell you the truth,” Lashoff said. “Whether you want it or not, he’ll tell it to you. And I think you see all the guys that still talk to him that are in the NHL, that I’ve continued to talk to, they still appreciate him for that.”

Data via Grand Rapids Griffins

When Thompson reflected on a recent day about what 2,000 games means to him — nearly 30 seasons working behind the scenes — his answer centered around loyalty to his team and his city.

He’s careful to shout out his assistant equipment managers from over the years for how much they’ve helped him. It speaks volumes, too, that three of those assistants — Chris Davidson-Adams (Stars, Golden Knights), Jim Heintzelman (Blackhawks) and Andrew Stegehuis (Stars) — made their way to the NHL. Thompson has had talks with NHL teams over the years, too.

But while Grand Rapids may be a stopover city for most of the players he works with, it’s home for him. Perhaps that’s at the heart of all the extra effort he puts in for them.

“When they come to my hometown,” he said, “I might as well make it as good as I can for them.”

“Like he usually says, he can’t make you a better hockey player, but he can make you a better person,” said Red Wings forward Jonatan Berggren. “I think he’s stuck with that.”

(Top photo: Allison Farrand / Detroit Red Wings)