Not all of Rangers championship experience is on the ice
Posted May 29, 2026 04:05:05 AM.
Last Updated May 29, 2026 11:07:32 AM.
The Kitchener Rangers line-up boasts plenty of championship experience, thanks largely to a big trade that brought two big players to East Avenue.
Sam O’Reilly and Jared Woolley, former London Knights, are both playing in their third consecutive Memorial Cup tournament. Beyond even that, this Rangers team is chock full of veteran players, many of whom went to the third round of the OHL playoffs last year with Kitchener.
And then there’s Dan Lebold.
The team’s head trainer and equipment manager is a veteran of almost 35 years and more than 2,000 OHL games.
“It’s almost hard to believe it’s been that many games. So, I guess if it’s hard to believe, then it must be some fun along the way,” admits Lebold. “To put it in perspective, Joe Birch (the Rangers’ Chief Operating Officer) was a sixth-round draft pick in my second year in Kitchener. So, I saw him come in as a 16-year-old, and now he’s my boss. I hope I treated him well when he was a player.”
Like O’Reilly and Woolley, this is Lebold’s third trip to the Memorial Cup, just not in consecutive years. The first trip was in 2003, when a Rangers team led by captain Derek Roy won the championship in Hull, Que. In 2008, the Rangers hosted the tournament, losing to Spokane in the final game.
Starting his OHL training career with Sudbury in 1992, Lebold came to Kitchener in 1995 and, eight years later, was off to that first Memorial Cup. He asked head coach Pete DeBoer what equipment the team should travel with, and DeBoer told him to take whatever he wanted. That was enough information for Lebold.
“I took anything that wasn’t screwed to the floor,” Lebold laughs.
He filled a 20-foot truck with all manner of equipment, including 12 stationary bikes, and then watched the cargo as it exited the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium onto Ottawa Street. That’s when Lebold admits to feeling a bit like an expectant mother, worrying the truck wouldn’t make it to Quebec and the team would be without all its comforts of home. Lebold also confesses to being a little anxious when he arrived in Hull, expecting to see the truck waiting, only to have it arrive about three hours later. Still, the equipment made it, and Lebold’s part in that ’03 championship was cemented.
This year, getting all that gear to the Memorial Cup in Kelowna presented a new set of challenges.
“We had to put it all on a plane. So, now you’re worried about weight and getting everything in,” Lebold explains. “The night before we left, I was pretty nervous. I don’t think I slept very much, just making sure we had everything we needed to be out here because things can go sideways in a hurry. But we’re loaded for bear out here (in Kelowna).”
Things are different in 2026 than they were in 2003. For one thing, the stationary bikes didn’t have to make the trip. The Canadian Hockey League has ensured that more equipment is available on-site — like skate sharpeners — so teams can travel with less. Always with an eye for detail, though, Lebold says there’s some gear that he packed that he’s yet to touch here in Kelowna, which is just fine by him because he’d rather be over-prepared than need something and not have it handy.
If the travel was different from the last time Lebold took a trip to the Memorial Cup, one thing seems eerily similar: this 2026 Rangers team compared to the team that won it all in 2003.
“There’s something unique about this team. There’s like a steely resolve to get it done,” says Lebold. “We’ve been down in games, we’ve been down in the score, and if it’s not the top line, the second line picks it up, or the third line kicks in, or Kirschy (goaltender Christian Kirsch) makes a huge save. He’s been phenomenal out here.”
As always, Lebold has been phenomenal in his own right, as reliable as the sunrise, a constant but quiet presence that provides calm throughout the Rangers organization. All in a day’s work for a hockey trainer and equipment manager.
“I’m hoping that the plane is a little heavier coming home on Sunday, with another trophy,” Lebold ends before dashing back to the rink and the makeshift dressing room that’s been set up in a schoolyard-like portable for the Rangers at Prospera Place arena. After all, Lebold has work to do in preparation for that game on Sunday.
Kitchener Rangers
