If Colten McIntyre could go back in time and tell his 8-year-old self that he’d make the NHL, he’d believe him. Any age after that, he wasn’t gullible enough to bite.
And if you’d told him that the team he’d suit up for was based in his home state of Utah, he probably would have thought he was dreaming.
McIntyre, a 21-year-old goalie born and raised in Park City, Utah, has been the Mammoth’s practice goalie all season. He played for Park City High (where he won three state championships) before heading to the East Coast to play college prep hockey — a level that doesn’t produce many NHLers.
He was watching “Scooby-Doo” in the bathtub of his Denver hotel room on Dec. 23 when he got a text telling him to head to the rink earlier than he normally does. Karel Vejmelka, the Utah Mammoth’s starting goaltender, was unsure whether he was fit to play.
That meant McIntyre might get his first chance to dress in an NHL game.
He hopped in an Uber and got to Ball Arena, where he found out he would indeed be dressing. The team presented him with an amateur tryout contract, at which point he sent a few quick text messages to family and friends.
It was unlikely that he’d actually play in the game, but crazier things have happened.
“It’s unreal,” McIntyre said nearly a week later when the team made him available to the media for the first time. “Like, I’m still trying to process it. Even though it happened like a week ago, it still doesn’t feel like a real situation to me.”
The best advice he received before the game came from defenseman Ian Cole, the oldest player on the team and also the most experienced in terms of games played: “It’s just another hockey game,” he said.
“That was nice to hear, and, like, settled me down a little bit,” McIntyre said.
Vítek Vaněček, Utah’s backup goalie, played the entire game without incident, meaning McIntyre was never called upon to actually play — but that didn’t make the experience any less special for him.
After the game, he couldn’t even scroll through all the notifications he had on his phone.
How does an emergency backup goalie get his job?
McIntyre’s plan for this year was to go to school, but when the opportunity to play hockey for a living fell in his lap, he couldn’t possibly turn it down.
Being one of the only high-level goalies in Utah, he has skated with NHL guys the past two summers, helping them stay ready during the offseason. Among that group were Mammoth forwards Michael Carcone and Lawson Crouse, who put in a good word for him to join the team as a full-time practice goalie.
This season, teams aren’t allowed to employ full-time third-string goalies — but that’s changing next year with the new collective bargaining agreement.
If both Mammoth goalies were to get hurt during the course of a game, they’d have to rely on the designated emergency backup goalie instead of McIntyre. He was only allowed to participate in the Colorado game because they signed him before it started.
Next year, the team will be free to have him on the roster all season long, if they so choose.
As it stands right now, McIntyre skates at every practice, travels with the team, stays at the nice hotels and eats at the fancy restaurants. Not a bad gig, by any metric.