Hang ‘Em High : Sharpening skates, drying uniforms just so, making it an ice day for Mighty Ducks. . . . It’s all part of the job for equipment managers.

As he stood in 3 inches of slush on the tarmac at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in the wee hours of the night, Mark O’Neill’s day was winding down. Or had just begun. The distinction is rarely clear.

Wherever the Mighty Ducks go, 1 1/4 tons of equipment must follow, and two men, O’Neill and assistant equipment manager John Allaway, are responsible for all of it.

There are skates, of course, two pairs for every player. Helmets, gloves, hockey pants. Shin pads, shoulder pads, suspenders, socks and jerseys, one for games and another for practices. Two hundred pounds of hockey sticks, a 100-pound skate-sharpening machine, a mini-stereo, medical supplies, double sets of underwear, knee braces, back braces, protective cups, little foam pads for the players’ tender feet.

From September to April, O’Neill, 39, and Allaway, 30, work at all hours, seven days a week, with little more than a dozen days off sprinkled across the 82-game regular season.

“It’s fun, though,” O’Neill said. “The game makes it fun, being around the guys and being on the bench. That’s what you look forward to, the next game.”

The life of an NBA equipment manager, by comparison, is a lark. What equipment? The NFL requires an impressive amount of gear, but there are only eight road games a season. Only baseball, with its 162-game schedule and heavy wood bats, rivals hockey. But baseball teams stay in the same city for days; they don’t practice, and they don’t travel through the dead of the Canadian winter.

A hockey team practices virtually every day--even on game days, there is a short, intense, 45-minute morning skate. Then the equipment must be straightened, sharpened, washed, repaired and laid out again.

A day in the life of an NHL equipment manager is grueling--and the line where one day passes into the next is hard to find.

Thursday, 10:07 p.m., Boston

The Bruins finish off the Ducks, 7-2--an embarrassing loss for players and coaches with New England ties.

Leaving the ice, the players drop their sticks into huge bags to be dragged out and loaded up. As they undress, they stuff their hockey pants and skates and other gear into their equipment bags. Long underwear, socks and personal garments go into small net bags, each with the player’s number on it, and those get tossed into the laundry pile in the middle of the room. By the time the players hit the showers, O’Neill and Allaway are hauling bags into the hallway to be loaded into the small truck they’ll drive ahead to the airport. “We’re usually out of there in 15 minutes,” O’Neill says.

11:47 p.m.

The mood is quiet as the plane takes off. A meal is served, and Allaway puts on his headphones. He and O’Neill were at the rink early to set up for the game-day practice, then clean up and prepare for the game. Tonight when they land, they’ll go straight to the rink to set up for the morning skate, returning again before 9 a.m. This flight will be a rare chance to get some sleep.

Friday, 12:44 a.m., Chicago

By the time they land in Chicago, the Ducks have crossed into the Central time zone, gaining an hour. Lou Varga, a longtime assistant equipment manager for the Blackhawks whose son, John, was drafted by the Washington Capitals in 1992, meets the team at the airport with two small trucks, and airport workers pull the Ducks’ gear from the cargo hold onto a conveyor and load it up.

1:33 a.m.

A security man hits a switch to open the mechanical doors, and Varga pulls into the tunnel at United Center--an arena in such a tough part of town that taxis sometimes won’t come when called. Workers help unload the bags and carry them to the dressing room.

Sometimes, after a game, gear is loaded onto the plane while it’s still soaking wet with sweat and melted ice. Wet, each bag weighs perhaps an extra 10 pounds. A goalie’s bag might weigh 50 pounds after a game. On cold nights, that gear can arrive from the flight frozen.

1:41 a.m.

“The quicker we get it done, the quicker we’ll be out of here,” O’Neill says as Allaway starts setting up the room, depositing each players’ equipment bag at his stall--defense on one side, forwards on the other, the two goalies together.

“Rookies in the corners, or on the bad spots by the aisles,” O’Neill says. “The veterans get the better spots.”

The laundry from the game is already being hauled off to industrial-sized washers, as are the game jerseys, which will be hung to dry overnight. Opening the stuffy, dank equipment bags can be an adventure. No number of years in the game can accustom a person to the stench peculiar to damp hockey gear, a stink so clinging that some players say you can only get it off your hands by rubbing them in shaving cream.

“It starts smelling pretty quick,” O’Neill said. “Some guys don’t wear socks with their skates. That’s the way they were taught, that they fit better without socks. Those guys’ skates seem to have a little extra smell, as you can imagine.”

Allaway starts hanging the pants and other gear, laying the next morning’s purple practice socks across the top of the pants, all just so. When he’s done at each stall, he lifts the lid of the bench and puts the bag and extra skates in the storage bin underneath.

“The way you hang the gear is just to be sure it will be dry and keep everything separate,” O’Neill says. “For example, you want the palms of the gloves up, facing the air.”

2:15 a.m.

“We’re almost done,” Allaway says. It’s 3:15 a.m. in Boston, where they woke up. But it’s even harder when teams fly East, losing time instead of gaining it.

“Last year, we were coming from San Jose and we got here at, like, 5:30 in the morning,” Allaway said.

O’Neill looks around for something to drink and finds a cold beer stuffed in a bag from the charter. He and Allaway split it and glance around to see what’s left.

“When we’re done, we turn the heat on and turn the fans on, or the stuff won’t dry,” O’Neill says. “You want to keep the air moving.”

2:24 a.m.

The heat and fans on, O’Neill checks that the doors are secured.

“You’ve got to make sure the room’s locked,” he says. “One time the Kings got some sticks stolen--[Wayne] Gretzky’s sticks.”

3:01 a.m.

A United Center worker drops off O’Neill and Allaway at the hotel.

“Nine o’clock in the lobby,” O’Neill says, and they head off to their rooms.

“I can usually sleep,” O’Neill says. “I’ll get up about half an hour before we leave in the morning, take a shower, get a cup of coffee.”

8:40 a.m.

O’Neill goes across the street for coffee, and he and Allaway grab a cab for United Center. By 9:20, they’re back in the dressing room, changing from warmup suits into shorts.

Trainer Paddy Jarit is already at the rink and helps set up the players’ sticks.

“A long trip like this, you hope they break a lot of sticks,” Jarit says as he lines each players’ set of five or six sticks along the wall. “It doesn’t look like they have.”

Around 9:30, the coaches walk in. Like the equipment men, assistant coach Tim Army will be there all day, preparing for the game and watching video.

Allaway starts putting away each players’ personal laundry, all clean now. When the players’ come off the ice after the morning skate, the practice laundry will go to the wash, and Allaway will lay out the game laundry, which was washed overnight.

Both men keep sniffling. Cold weather, no sleep, too many airplanes--it’s a wonder they aren’t sick all season.

9:43 a.m.

Defenseman Robert Dirk, soon to be traded to Montreal, is the first player to arrive. Some come early by cab, and a bus will bring the rest about an hour before the 11:30 a.m. skate.

10:23 a.m.

O’Neill starts sharpening skates. It is a specialized skill the players appreciate being done well; each player has his own specifications. O’Neill is expert, having worked for the Kings for 14 years before joining the Ducks. His father, Frank, was the Lakers’ trainer from 1960 to 1974.

10:33 a.m.

The bus arrives, and Joe Sacco walks by and taps O’Neill. The equipment men are part of the team, and, like everyone else, their names are reduced to a kind of shorthand. O’Neill is Onie; Allaway is A-man. But being part of the team has its personal costs. The best friend of O’Neill’s fiancee died of cancer just before the trip, and O’Neill missed the funeral. Allaway’s wife, JoAnne, is nine months’ pregnant. He carries a beeper, anxious for any word.

11:15 a.m.

O’Neill finishes sharpening skates. He’ll do another dozen pairs in the afternoon--about two hours’ work, all told.

11:30 a.m.

With the players on the ice, the next 45 minutes are quiet. “They kind of leave the room a mess,” Allaway said. “We straighten it up a little bit and get ready for them to come off the ice. When they do, all the work starts again.” By 1 p.m., the players who hang around to take extra shots or play a pickup game with the coaches are gone. It’s time to prepare for the real event, the game.

1:15 p.m.

Allaway starts hanging the fresh game jerseys at the stall of each player in the lineup that night, facing out, so the name and number are the first thing you see.

“Some teams hang the sweaters with the crest facing out,” Allaway said. “This way, they walk in the room, and there’s their sweater, hanging there. They know, ‘That’s me, over there. That’s my place.’ ”

Allaway and O’Neill are particular about how the room looks.

“Every stall is the same way,” Allaway said. “The skates are a certain way; the helmets are a certain way, nice and neat across the top. The shin pads face a certain way too. This is the way it should look when the players arrive. First impressions are everything.

“Some teams just slap the stuff up there, the skates going one way and the socks all a mess. Me and Mark are pretty organized and thorough. Neat freaks. You kind of have to be.”

Todd Ewen, a veteran player who sometimes arrives early and helps lay out things, laughs.

“I think that kind of anal retentiveness adds a certain professionalism,” he says. “This is the NHL; everything has its certain position. If a guy wears a knee brace, it goes in a certain spot. We don’t care what level you were at before. This is the NHL, and the cup goes on the left.”

1:28 p.m.

O’Neill orders lunch. Sometimes there is time to go back to the hotel for the team meal and a short nap, but not here. By the time they got to the hotel, it would almost be time to come back.

2 p.m.

The food arrives, ravioli and such from an Italian delivery place. But Allaway is involved in another project, sewing up holes he has found in some of the hockey socks. Then he decides to ride the exercise bike hard before he eats. O’Neill goes with Army into the coaches’ office to watch video of the previous night’s debacle as he eats. Then it’s back to sharpening skates.

3:50 p.m.

“That’s it for the skates,” O’Neill says as he finishes up and heads off for a shower. In less than 30 minutes, the first players will start arriving for the 7:30 game. By now, most of the work is done. O’Neill and Allaway are just on hand to fill any player requests that come up for repairs and such.

“They’ve got all kinds of things they have to do for different guys,” Ewen says. “They have to constantly redo my skates. I like them really tight on my feet so my feet get almost numb. I’m always pulling the eyelets off because I pull the laces so tight, and they have to sew them back on.”

6 p.m.

The players are all in the dressing room for the pregame meeting. As the team gears up, O’Neill and Allaway can relax. There’s little to do right now; sometimes, they pack the equipment of the players not in the lineup. At 6:55, the players go on the ice for the warmup, and there’s a bit of straightening. They’re back at 7:15, making final preparations for the 7:35 face-off.

7:52 p.m.

It’s obvious how the game will go. Chicago scored twice in the first five minutes, and the Ducks go on to lose, 3-0. On the bench, O’Neill and and Allaway toss players towels, maybe “stone” someone’s skates to give them a little more edge and are on call for repairs.

10:05 p.m.

Coach Ron Wilson steps out to meet the press. Inside, work is already underway but at a more casual pace. The team isn’t flying to Winnipeg until morning, so most of the work can wait.

11:30 p.m.

O’Neill and Allaway get to the hotel before midnight; an easy night. But they’ll be at the rink around 7:45 a.m. to pack up and collect the laundry and jerseys, which were washed and hung to dry overnight. The team will fly to Winnipeg at 10 a.m., and O’Neill and Allaway go straight to the rink to set up for practice. The next day, there will be another morning skate and another game, then a hurried packing and a homebound flight. They’ll arrive in Anaheim in the middle of the night, but they know the next day, Monday, they get a break. No practice.

Monday, 6:35 p.m., Orange County

Allaway has a day off--and a family. Nicolette Marie Allaway is born just before dinner time.