Inside the dim storage room that is crowded by boxes stacked three-high and sniffing the ceiling, Brock Myles saw the most important day of his career arranged before him. Three weeks remained until the Winter Classic, and the Washington Capitals’ head equipment manager still had plenty left to do. Pants still needed sewing, decals affixing, packages opening, trucks loading and unloading. And what about the skate guards that hadn’t yet shipped, the biggest lingering worry for the man charged with handling everything worn New Year’s Day at Nationals Park?

“I’ve got stuff that keeps coming in every day,” Myles said. “I’m trying to keep it organized as much as I can.”

So Myles stuffed the winter hats into two plastic bins and found room on the shelves. The 75 practice jerseys, partitioned into seven colors, and 140 game jerseys hung from racks, near the laundry hampers filled with burgundy helmets. Around the narrow corner sat more boxes of dry-erase boards, whistles and Oakley sunglasses, all customized for the big game. Myles contemplated whether this might be the only one the District hosts during his career, meaning his only opportunity to impress.

The everyday tasks of managing an NHL team already consumed enough time, especially during a road-heavy December spent hopping from one city to the next, but for the Winter Classic the workload had multiplied. Take everything the Capitals wear each game — the helmets, the gloves, the four jerseys, one for warmups and each period — and double the stock for the Winter Classic, then tailor everything to fit individual specifications.

Alex Ovechkin, for instance, prefers three “tie-downs,” straps that prevent his jersey from getting yanked off during a scrum, and burns through three gloves each game, all emblazoned with his name and number. Troy Brouwer likes his tie-downs longer and only uses two gloves. Rookies Andre Burakovsky and Liam O’Brien recently changed sponsors, from Reebok-CCM to Bauer. Coach Barry Trotz and goaltending coach Mitch Korn, shorter in stature, needed three inches taken off their track pants.

The Capitals have been playing better and are now in the third playoff spot for the Metropolitan Division. The Post Sports Live crew discusses whether Washington could be a legitimate playoff contender. (Post Sports Live/The Washington Post)

“I’m almost like a fashion coordinator in the NHL,” Myles said.

Roughly one year ago, Myles began scripting his Winter Classic plans, sifting through online catalogs and placing orders, but really his entire professional life had pointed toward this event. He graduated in 1993 from Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario, with a degree in sports management, then worked his way through hockey’s lower rungs in places such as London, Ontario, and Port Huron, Mich.

He learned to sharpen skates and taught himself to sew. He met Detroit Red Wings stars such as Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov, who hung around the Detroit Falcons of the Colonial Hockey League during the NHL lockout season of 1994-95. He set his sights on climbing the ladder because these junior players yearned to reach the NHL, so why not him, too?

He sacrificed plenty to reach here, standing inside this crowded equipment closet at the Capitals’ practice facility in Arlington on a recent afternoon: canceled fishing trips, skipped birthday parties, missed funerals. But it all paid off in November 2006, when former Capitals general manager George McPhee called Myles, then 35 years old and with the team’s affiliate in Portland, Maine, and offered him a promotion.

Just like athletes teetering between the minors and NHL, Myles motivated himself with the fear of getting sent down, though that seems unlikely given his attention to detail. After all, he ordered customized whistles for the coaches, special dry-erase boards for practice and extra helmets and jerseys to guard against a game-day call-up. Myles procured turtlenecks, toques and hand-warming pouches from an assistant equipment manager for the University of Maryland football team who works part time for the Capitals and tinted visors to guard against the shining sun.

In 2011, when the Capitals faced the Pittsburgh Penguins at Heinz Field, Myles began thinking about hosting the Winter Classic and noted what he would do differently. He consulted with his assistants — Craig “Woody” Leydig, Dave Marin and Ray Straccia — and with fellow equipment managers in Toronto and Chicago, who also had handled recent outdoor games. This led him to buy beach towels to cover the sticks in case it snowed and logo-adorned skate guards so the cameras could catch them on the approach from the locker room to the rink.

“The little things make a big difference,” he said, his mind suddenly racing faster. Over the summer, he spent roughly a half-hour each week hacking away at the tasks. Now it felt like that much each day, managing equipment for practices and games in between planning. He was thinking about delivering the pucks to Nationals Park, where they needed the ice to be frozen 24 hours ahead of time, about lugging the supplies across the Potomac River and unpacking the cold-weather gear still in boxes — and when the heck were those skate guards coming?

But first, he produced his cellphone and opened his e-mail inbox. The messages had piled up, each seeking Myles’s approval for something new. He scrolled down and found one.

“This is something cool,” Myles said. He had ordered engraved nameplates for the game’s four officials. Hopefully, like the skate guards, the nameplates would be arriving soon.