Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Dominic Moore has played in nearly 900 NHL games over the course of 13 seasons. He has scored series-winning playoff goals and broadcasted games for national audiences.
But if that's not enough to convince you the former NHL center is qualified to be the Utah Hockey Club's first television analyst, consider this: He already knows how to pronounce Mantua — and knows all about those pesky speed traps up Sardine Canyon.
That, alone, is pretty Utahn.
"This is a community I know fairly well," he said. "My mother-in-law grew up in Mantua, so we come out here every couple of years for family reunions and Little Valley Days in the summer. I'm really excited to be at the beginning of growing this sport around this franchise in this area. That's something that I'm really grateful for."
Moore, play-by-play announcer Matt McConnell, and the rest of the newly announced Utah broadcast team will be at the forefront of growing the game in the state. Thousands of fans will be learning the game for the first time this season when the puck drops on the NHL's time in Salt Lake City.
That is something the new crew doesn't take lightly.
"I think there's a huge responsibility for all of us to not only educate but to make it fun, right?" said McConnell, who has worked in the NHL since 1993.
You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who knows Utah's newest team better than McConnell. He spent the last 13 years in Arizona with the now-defunct Coyotes. He was there when general manager Bill Armstrong tore the roster down to the studs and has chronicled every step of the ongoing rebuild.
He knows what makes Clayton Keller so good, and why fans should be excited about Logan Cooley. He has seen first hand how dangerous Dylan Guenther's shot is, and understands how special Josh Doan's story could one day be.
While the faces are mostly the same, he admits things don't feel the same. That's not a bad thing.
"It does feel like a new team," he said. "And I think I got a feel for that in April when I was at the meet the team event. Just a totally different energy, a different vibe."
That wasn't the first time McConnell had seen that energy, though.
McConnell began his hockey broadcasting career in the 1980s calling International Hockey League games. The schedule was made up of bus trips to midwest cities like Kalamazoo and Saginaw in Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio — and then a couple of flights to the Rocky Mountain region.
McConnell enjoyed the stops in Salt Lake City. It provided a change of pace, sure, but he remembers how loud the fans were for those Salt Lake Golden Eagles teams. The Golden Eagles were beloved and sometimes even outdrew the Utah Jazz in the early 1980s when the team shared the old Salt Palace.
"You'd always played two or three games, and the fans back then were passionate," he said.
He's seen that passion start to return as hockey, in some ways, reintroduces itself to the state. He saw it when youth hockey players filled an airport hangar to welcome the team. He saw it when fans filled up the Delta Center to capacity just for the meet-and-greet event. He saw it when he was stopped by a fan for a picture as he left the arena that night.
"I'm like, 'Me? You want me?'" he said.
That type of excitement is what drew Moore away from network games to a full-time team job. Moore has served as an analyst with ESPN and NBC following his retirement in 2019.
"We've all watched in recent years when Seattle came in and when Vegas came in, the energy and passion in the communities," Moore said. "Everyone who saw that, said, 'Man, it'd be nice to be a part of something like that.'"
He now gets to do just that.
Moore, who grew up in Ontario, Canada, said one of his favorite parts about being an analyst is teaching and sharing his love for the game. He'll have ample opportunity to do just that in Utah with a new fan base.
You can call him Utah's first professor of hockey, a role that has already started. He has been fielding questions from his Utah relatives since news of the team broke.
"They're really sporty people, and they're into football and baseball, but hockey is new for them," he said. "I love talking to them about it. Honestly, it's great. It's a great testing ground for me to be able to do that on the air."
