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Not many kids have a clear vision of their future, but Mike Burnstein sure did.

At 14, Burnstein volunteered to do equipment duties for a Junior A hockey team with the hope of becoming an athletic therapist. He sharpened skates and learned about player injuries. Before long, whenever a kid in gym class got injured, his high school sports teacher would call him down from math to have a look.

"This is what I wanted to do all my life," says Burnstein, who is the head athletic therapist for the Vancouver Canucks.

Burnstein knew exactly where to go for training, and shortly after graduation, he got the job with the Canucks. But it wasn't long before he had his baptism of fire. Star player Pavel Bure received a serious injury early in the season. Bure blew out his anterior cruciate ligament -- an important ligament surrounding the knee. It was going to take months of work.

"It was a big hurdle for me to overcome," says Burnstein, admitting that coping with Bure's fame was a challenge. "When he got hurt at the start of the season, I was thrown in the kitchen right away. He's one of the best players in the world and I had to rehab him back."

If that wasn't enough, the ever-watchful media also focused on Burnstein and Bure. But they both came through it. "At the time I hated it," Burnstein says. "Now I can sit back and relax. Once you've been through something like that, you know it can't get any worse."

While the pressures outside the professional sports umbrella aren't as intense, all therapists deal with the future of athletes in their job. "Knowing you're helping a young athlete is important, even though they don't realize it at the time," says Lynn Bookalam, head athletic therapist and clinic coordinator at McGill University.

While Bookalam doesn't work in pro sports, she has worked with world-class athletes as chief athletic therapist at the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville, France. Sometimes her work demands round-the-clock care, depending on the conditions under which the injury occurred.

"I remember when a precision figure skater collided with a teammate, hit her head and suffered a mild concussion," says Bookalam. "I ran on to the ice, assessed her and arranged for transport to the first aid room. Because we were at the world championships and living in the same hotel, I treated her four times per day."

Then there's the mixed pressure of balancing what's best for the athlete and what's best for the sport. Convincing an athlete to hold back or even leave the sport can be tough.

"The hardest part is telling an athlete they have to alter their participation level in their late teens or early 20s due to a serious injury," says Bookalam.

Kent Falb, president of the National Athletic Trainers' Association, says a trainer's work is vital to the success of any team, yet trainers still struggle with their public image. "There's lots of trainers out there -- computer trainers, horse trainers, lion trainers," laughs Falb, who is also head athletic trainer with the Detroit Lions.

Falb was once asked to speak at a Rotary Club meeting. The speaker introduced him as a lion trainer -- needless to say, Falb always emphasizes the word "athletic" when he talks about his job. "When people just say the word trainer, it doesn't give us the respect or the dignity," he says.

But there are pluses to the business, Falb says. "I like the fact that you're in a health profession, but you're dealing with healthy, physically active people," he says.

"You could treat people in a clinic with these types of injuries, using the same techniques. But here I'm dealing with the injuries, but with world-class athletes. And I'm involved in a highly competitive, highly professional business."

Perhaps the biggest reward an athletic trainer receives is helping athletes reach the pinnacle of success, while showing them how to lead a healthy, productive life once they retire from the sport.

"My job has had a tremendous impact on my life," says Bookalam. "It has allowed me to put it in better perspective, and I've learned that unless you're healthy yourself, you can't help other injured athletes. It's taught me that there is life after elite sports -- good health later in life might be worth more than the moment of victory at the time."