Trainer Mike Gapski saw it all in 36 years for the Chicago Blackhawks. But now ‘it’s time to turn the page.’

Few names in Chicago Blackhawks annals could share center stage with Jonathan Toews and not look out of place.

When Toews took his final bow as a Hawk in Thursday’s season finale, Mike Gapski took his too.

The Hawks head trainer for the past 36 years retired as the league’s longest-tenured trainer with one NHL team.

Pete Demers spent 37 years with the Los Angeles Kings organization, but the first three were with the AHL’s Springfield Kings. Tommy Woodcock was athletic trainer for 37 years for three teams: the St. Louis Blues (16 years), Hartford Whalers (7) and San Jose Sharks (14).

Gapski logged 2,759 regular-season games and 249 playoff games for the Hawks and was in charge of the care of 536 players. The Hawks estimate he worked with 53% of players in team history.

Trainer was his main title, but he could’ve added amateur psychologist.

“Players are extremely competitive,” Gapski told the Tribune. “Nobody ever wants to sit out. Nobody ever wants to miss the game, so it’s always tough.”

When players suffer long-lasting injuries, “it wears on them mentally. So you do have to play psychologist once in a while to sit and talk to them, calm (them) down, assure them that things are going to be all right and that we’re on the right path.”

During Thursday’s send-off, the Hawks showed a video-board tribute, wife Lynne played shoot the puck and the United Center crowd gave Gapski a standing ovation.

Throughout the day, the Hawks gave Gapski his flowers.

“It was great to see Gapper get recognized the way he was tonight,” Toews said. “Those guys that are behind the scenes, I consider them family (for) dealing with me in ways I don’t want to talk about for too many years.”

In an unusual twist, Luke Richardson, the last of a long line of coaches with whom Gapski worked, was there at the beginning and end.

“My first game in the NHL, in the old Chicago Stadium, that was Mike Gapski’s first game,” said Richardson, who was a defenseman for the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs on Oct. 8, 1987.

After getting to know Gapski during his first year as Hawks coach, Richardson said “Gapper fits the same personality” as his staff.

“He’s a calm guy, he’s got the experience, he’s direct,” Richardson said. “The players trust him but also the coaching staff and management trust him. That’s hard to do — it’s hard to please both sides. So he knows how to walk that line.

“For trainers to last that long is incredible. Usually when there are coaching changes and management changes, they usually change staff. But to recognize he’s so useful and important to this organization and to last here this long was a great decision for the organization to keep him here.

“Sad to see him go, but (retirement is) well-deserved.”

Gapski has been sheepish about all the attention.

“I’m not a player,” he said. “Granted, I’ve been there for 36 years, but I’m just the guy in the background trying to get players as ready as they can to play the game. I’m not the guy that likes to be the showboat.”

Gapski shared his background and insights on the game, as well as a few war stories from being Hawks trainer for more than three decades.

1. Why retire now?

After 36 years, the rigors of the job caught up with Gapski.

“It’s time to turn the page and then move on to a different chapter in my life, although I’ve enjoyed every minute of it there and I still love the job,” he said.

Gapski, 65, said recent deaths of friends and family members around his age had an impact.

“It makes me think, well, why don’t you just turn the page, move on and enjoy life a little bit because you never know what’s going to happen,” he said.

In later years, Gapski said the training staff — including physical therapist Patrick Becker and strength and conditioning coach Paul Goodman — made his workload more manageable.

“And my assistant, Jeff Thomas, he’s fantastic with everything,” Gapski said. “He’s my right hand.”

2. What will Gapski do in retirement?

The short answer: He doesn’t know.

He’ll have a lot more time to spend with Lynne and their four children: Michael, Steven, Gillian and Ryan.

But summers always have been “pretty easy” with a lighter workload, so in the short term it won’t feel all that different.

However, he’ll spend some of his time finding his replacement. He already has received a few inquiring emails.

“(General manager) Kyle (Davidson) and (assistant GM of hockey operations) Meghan (Hunter), they want me to help them pick some candidates to interview and help in the interview process, some people that I feel would be right for the role,” Gapski said.

Come fall, he’ll help on occasion when needed. He wants to stick around as much as he can to see the rebuild.

“I’m excited to see how they’re going to turn this around … into another championship team,” he said.

3. How fitting would ‘Gapper’ be for a baseball trainer?

The Blackhawks, White Sox and Bears — in that order — were Gapski’s dream choices, but more on that in a minute. He shared how his roots led him to the Hawks job.

“I’m a die-hard Blackhawks fan, born and bred,” said Gapski, who grew up in the Marquette Park/Gage Park area.

The St. Rita alumnus’ parents also were big fans, but “I never anticipated working for the Blackhawks.” Gapski graduated from the Illinois-Chicago in 1982 and went right to work as an assistant athletic trainer, ultimately becoming the Flames head trainer.

During his time at UIC, “my mom goes, ‘Why don’t you call the Blackhawks?’ And I said, ‘Mom, they got their own people. I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes.’

“And then one day, (coach) Bob Murdoch called me and asked me if I’d be interested to come and interview for the Blackhawks, and I was like, wow, if I did want to go pro, Blackhawks were my No. 1 team.”

Gapski’s mother probably was more excited than he was.

“She loved Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and all those guys,” he said. “I went down, did a couple interviews and Bob Murdoch called me in after the interviews and said, ‘Hey, I’m good with you. If you can come to an agreement with the general manager, Bob Pulford, you got the job.’ And we came to terms and here I am.”

Gapski started in the 1987-88 season. He believes what sold the Hawks on him is he told them he wouldn’t be a rubber stamp if the coach or GM thought a player was healthy enough to play.

“I’m here to protect the players and give you the best team I can,” he said. “Some coaches have a tendency to intimidate players, and I’m not going to be intimidated because I have a job to do and I am going to do my job.”

4. Working with Hawks coaches coached him too.

Managing personalities is part of the job, and Gapski worked with eight general managers, from Pulford to Davidson, and 15 coaches, from Murdoch to Richardson.

“The fiercest (coach) was probably Mike Keenan,” Gapski said. “But in (his) defense, I don’t think I’d be the trainer, the person I am if it wasn’t for him.

“However, he was very difficult to deal with. It was my second year in the NHL and he was established already — a winning coach — and he was really tough to work for.”

For Keenan, the rule was don’t give him what he asks for, give him what he wants — even if the coach didn’t know it at the time.

“Say, hypothetically, he made somebody do something, and then I’ll do it, and then he’ll change his mind,” Gapski said. “So I learned to be three steps ahead of him: Don’t think of what he’s asking the first time, think of what he’s going to ask me the third time.”

His experience with Keenan taught Gapski to evaluate every aspect of his job on a deeper level.

“He always questioned me: ‘Why are you doing that? Why don’t you do this?’ ” Gapski said. “So I always had to think of alternate options: ‘Why am I doing this?’ ‘If I think it’s the best to do, and if that’s not working, what’s the next process?’ I always had to have that in the back of my head.”

With Joel Quenneville, who shepherded three Stanley Cup runs, Gapski had a good rapport “from Day 1.”

“The one thing I knew about him, if you make a mistake, which we all do, you take the heat and you move on from there,” he said.

“I loved working for Joel. He understood the whole picture. He played the game. He was great with the guys for rest. He was great with the guys for letting them be players, be friends, do their thing (and) never got into their business.

“When you’re there on the ice — all hockey, that’s all you worry about.”

5. Gapski’s 2 toughest players? The Hammer and the Bruise Brother.

When it came to how players handled pain, Gapski saw the full range, but he resisted making judgments.

While one player would be unfazed by a broken arm, “you got another guy that has a sprained finger and he’s like, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’” he said. “I can’t be the guy that’s telling another player how much pain they’re in. So I’ve never said to a player, ‘Like, c’mon, dude.’”

He talked with players about their injuries, treated the symptoms and tried to “reassure them that they’re safe.”

But two players did stand out for their toughness: Niklas “Hammer” Hjalmarsson, a three-time Cup winner and 25th all time with 1,606 blocked shots, and Bob Probert, the legendary Hawks enforcer and member of the Detroit Red Wings “Bruise Brothers” with Joey Kocur.

Gapski developed a rapport with Hjalmarsson and came to understand “he was probably the toughest guy that played” during his tenure as head trainer.

“He’d get hit with shots,” Gapski said. “I learned the first time I’d go up to him and say, ‘Nik, are you all right?’ And he was like, ‘Get the (expletive) out of here!’ It’s like, OK, I got it.”

Gapski eventually learned “if he needs me, he looks at me, gives me a little nod, I know to come down and see him. Otherwise, stay away from him.”

With Probert, “every stitch we did for him, I don’t think we ever gave him a shot of Novocain, we just put the stitches in,” Gapski said.

He recalled asking Probert after one particular cut: “ ‘This is one that is a little more significant, do you need it?’ He’s like, ‘Nope. I’m good. Just put it in.’ He’d just lay there and it’s like, OK, here you go.”

As fearsome as Probert was during games, he was “just a teddy bear” to Gapski.

“He was a great guy, always treated us with respect, always treated us nicely,” he said. “The difference between on ice and off ice was remarkable.”

6. The biggest difference-maker for injuries: the glass.

To Gapski, opponents weren’t the only threat to his players. The surroundings and equipment could be too.

In 2011, the NHL required the last six rinks still using seamless glass to replace them with plexiglass. But before they were phased out, Gapski saw their effects from ground level.

“The old days, it was tough on me because injuries had the potential to be more significant because the boards were like concrete walls,” he said. “You look at the old Chicago Stadium, those boards, it was glass — they didn’t move.”

Teams in those days preferred seamless glass to provide unobstructed views for fans, but Gapski said his organization, the Professional Hockey Athletic Trainers Society, aided the campaign to change the glass through findings from their studies.

“You look at Montreal Forum, Toronto Maple Leaf Garden, all these arenas … we have documents that these boards are extremely hard,” he said. “Guys are getting separated shoulders, dislocated shoulders, fractured ribs, torn (rib) cartilage.

“So over the years, they’ve changed the boards. And now a guy gets checked in the boards real hard, you see the boards flying back and forth. That’s good for the players because even though it sounds hard, it’s not as (hard).

“In the old days, you get hit like that and you’re crushed between a 210-pounder or a 220-pounder (and the glass), something’s coming out of there hurting.”

If the NHL hadn’t changed to more flexible panes, today’s injuries could be worse.

“The game’s just gotten faster,” he said.

Meanwhile, innovations with skates led to fewer foot injuries, he said.

“The evolution of the skates, going from a leather to composite boot, has made a significant difference in the players,” Gapski said. “In the old days, if a player blocked a shot in the foot, you know you’re getting a broken foot.

“Nowadays, players can get hit in the foot and they just get up and move on. Yes, it hurts, but the amount of fractures you see in feet is way less than you did in the past.”

7. Best part of the job was ‘the camaraderie.’

Gapski has forged many relationships. When his retirement was announced, he heard from Brad Richards, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, among others.

His longest-running friendship has been with former Hawks center and current broadcaster Troy Murray. Gapski has been around so long, he sees his tenure mainly through two generations of Hawks.

“I don’t know how you call it: the (Jeremy) Roenick, (Ed) Belfour, (Chris) Chelios, (Steve) Smith, (Brent) Sutter, Dirk Graham era” of the 1990s, Gapski said. “And it changed to the Toews, (Patrick) Kane, Seabrook, (Corey) Crawford” era.

“It’s weird how I made it through two different generations of elite hockey players.”

Gapski also marveled at hockey generations of a different type: fathers and sons.

For example, Tie Domi’s career came and went during his time, and Gapski stuck around long enough to treat Domi’s son, Max.

“As long as I don’t walk past the mirror, I feel young,” he said.