MONTREAL — When the Canadiens fly home from Buffalo after their game Thursday night, Pierre Ouellette will be waiting for the equipment truck to roll into the team’s training facility in Brossard.

His work will include tossing the players’ sweat-soaked jerseys, socks and undergarments into the industrial washing machines in his office.

For a man who deals with hockey apparel and equipment, and plays pickup hockey in his personal life, Ouellette possesses a fortunate trait.

“I smell nothing anymore,” said Ouellette, assistant to equipment manager Pierre Gervais with the Canadiens.

“I have no more sense of how hockey equipment stinks or whatever. I’m totally immune to it,”

The team’s equipment doesn’t smell that bad, he said.

What mostly causes an odour with hockey equipment is when people don’t do a good job of drying it out, leaving it in their car or garage or not unpacking it, Ouellette said.

“Our equipment is dried thoroughly every single day.”

The Canadiens dry equipment at the Bell Centre and their practice facility over an eight-hour period with ceiling fans and a heating system that raises the temperature considerably in the dressing room. Heat is only part of the equation. The hot air has to circulate to dry out the equipment, Ouellette said.

The Canadiens also regularly use a Sani Sport machine for equipment. It kills bacteria with ozone, which helps remove the odour, Ouellette said.

Most Canadiens players ask to have their gloves dried between periods during a game. The team has a glove dryer at the Bell Centre that was specifically made for it, Ouellette said.

Some players will change their jerseys, underwear or T-shirt between periods. Canadiens captain Brian Gionta likes to have his jersey dried between periods and, as much as possible, his skates, Ouellette said. Blow dryers are used for the skates.

The Canadiens were scheduled to leave for Buffalo right after playing the Boston Bruins Wednesday night.

They’ll bring the laundry with them along with dry apparel for the players’ practice on Thursday morning, Ouellette said.

When the team arrives in Buffalo, the equipment staff will unload the players’ equipment into a truck and head to the rink. Someone from the Sabres’ staff will wash the Canadiens’ laundry for them — a reciprocal service that home teams do for visiting teams.

Ouellette gets queried by teammates in his pickup hockey league about how to get rid of the smell in their skates.

“And I tell them the most important thing is to dry it out, just to dry it out,” he said. “That’s the most important thing, without a doubt.”

You should also remove the skate’s insole and dry it separately. Otherwise, the moisture will stay stuck inside, Ouellette said.

If you dry out your skates properly every single time you use them, “not only will you add years to your skates, it will help for the smell, too,” Ouellette said.

The Canadiens also use an odour-eliminating spray on equipment after practices and games.

Ouellette joined the Canadiens in 1991. He’s known simply as “Steamer,” a nickname he landed during his first year on the job courtesy of former Canadiens tough guy Todd Ewen.

The name stemmed from a prank pulled by former Hab Brian Skrudland, who asked Ouellette to bring him a bucket of steam to warm up his wrists.

“I had no idea what he was talking about,” Ouellette recounted.

“But I’m 21 years old, so I go into the clinic and I asked the assistant therapist.”

The therapist was also perplexed and went into the dressing room while Ouellette was in the hallway at the old Forum. He told Ouellette to unplug the hydrocollator, a heating device used for heat packs, and to bring it to the room.

“I roll into the dressing room with this, everybody dies laughing,” Ouellette said.

The next day Ewen called him “Steamer” and it stuck.

As one of four full-time equipment staff, Ouellette stresses it’s a team effort. He’s one part of a team behind the players.

His office contains industrial laundry machines — two huge dryers and three washing machines. On a regular day, he’ll probably wash 100 towels in addition to the other laundry he does. On game days, he starts work at 7 a.m. and finishes at midnight. Hectic, yes. But Ouellette says he’s just so fortunate to be there.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s great.”

His job includes other responsibilities, such as processing invoices and setting up the bench for practice with players’ drinks, towels and coaches’ boards.

He likens his work a bit to Dirty Jobs, a long-running program that aired on the Discovery Channel, “because we have to grab dirty towels and players’ underwear and all that and we’re hanging up dirty, sweaty stuff,” he said.

“But that’s part of what we do and I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Ouellette laughed.

bbranswell@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @bbranswell