After 32 Seasons, Preds Trainer Agnew Thankful to Become NHL Rookie

For 32 seasons, Doug Agnew had watched his players receive "the call."
As the athletic trainer for the Milwaukee Admirals since 1989, Agnew had seen just about everything in the American Hockey League, the top developmental league for the NHL. In 1998, when the Nashville Predators came into existence, the Admirals soon linked up with the Preds, and one by one, rookies got their chance to perform in the best League in the world.
Year after year, Agnew was behind the bench in Milwaukee and beyond, taking care of everything from broken bones to smelling salts - and he loved his life doing so.
However, just about everyone in the AHL aspires to make the leap to the next and best level at one point or another, and Agnew had thought about the proposition before. But after three decades in the Cream City, he assumed he would always be with the Ads.
And then the phone rang one morning last summer.

Predators Assistant General Manager Brian Poile was on the other line, and he had an offer for Agnew, one the soft-spoken trainer never saw coming.
"Brian Poile asked if I'd be interested in a permanent position in Nashville],"
[Agnew explained on a recent episode of the Preds Official Podcast
. "I was quite stunned, actually, because I thought that opportunity, that door had closed… But I looked at [my wife] Melanie, she's sitting across the table one morning as I was having coffee, and she smiled and said, 'Yeah, you've got to go.' I mean, that was it. Her eyes lit up, and she said, 'You're going to the NHL.' After all these years, 32 years in Wisconsin, and you finally get that call. It was pretty exciting. Very exciting."
Yes, with 2,487 AHL games to his name, Agnew was about to become an NHL rookie.
He's acclimated perfectly into Nashville's staff as an assistant athletic trainer this season alongside Head Athletic Trainer Kevin Morley, as well as fellow assistants D.J. Amadio and Jeff Biddle, and the players - most of whom he had previously worked with at one point or another in Milwaukee - love having him here, too.
"It's a good group," Agnew said. "They took me right into the fold, and it was a very seamless transition to come up here and help out. Again, the other guys in the training room, they're just wonderful guys. We have a lot of fun. We have a lot of laughs during the day and we all get along… And the acceptance of the players of my role has been fun as well. A lot of them have been through Milwaukee, so I do have a history with them. So, it's been just kind of a natural kind of progression. I just never thought it would happen, but I'm sure I'm appreciative that it did. And it's been fun so far, really fun."

Just 13 contests into his NHL career, Agnew hit an impressive milestone - the 2,500 games-worked plateau - as he watched the Preds defeat the Stars earlier this month in Dallas. On Wednesday night in Nashville, Agnew was honored for the accomplishment alongside family members who have been with him every step of the way, and his hockey family was just as proud.
And for a man from Nelson, British Columbia, who once thought he would be a physical education teacher, it's been quite a career.
"It was a funny thing back in the day when I started out. I asked my wife Melanie, 'You know, I really want to give this a try. Just give me five years of this athletic-training career, and if it doesn't pan out, I'll go back and get a regular job,'" Agnew recalled.
But he's never needed one of those, instead spending every day at a hockey rink around some of the best players in the world. Most of those days came in Milwaukee, and Agnew will never forget his time spent along the shores of Lake Michigan.
"A lot of people have said I've toiled all these 32 years in Milwaukee, and that's not the case, because I really enjoyed living in Milwaukee and working with these players and in the community and the organization down there," Agnew said. "They're wonderful, and I was very comfortable in Milwaukee. And so, it was kind of bittersweet to leave because I had such a great situation there. The people I worked with there were wonderful… But again, when you get the call from the NHL, as a career goal, you can't turn your back on that and I jumped at the opportunity to move up here."
Agnew will never forget that call, and he'll be forever grateful for the opportunity to care for the Preds. Plus, he admits he's been awestruck watching the best players in the world at ice level, and he's sure he's never said, 'wow,' with so much regularity night after night.
For that reason, and so much more, the hours, the travel, the grind - they're all worth it for the only job Agnew ever wanted.
"You always say if you love the job you do, you never have to work a day in your life," Agnew said. "I've watched 2,500 hockey games and didn't have to pay for a single one. It's been wonderful."