When the Colby College hockey team reached the NCAA Division III Frozen Four final season, certainly one of the game’s strength gamers at the West Coast was reduced to the role of cheerleader. “I had my colors on. I had my hat on,” stated Judd Moldaver, a Toronto local who played for the Mules from 2000-2004. “I became fired up.

Inequity, Moldaver’s name won’t resonate with many on Mayflower Hill. In a career besieged with the aid of accidents, he scored six goals in 35 games for Colby. It’s within the National Hockey League wherein Moldaver’s name carries lots of weight. Moldaver, the senior vice president of hockey at Wasserman/Orr Hockey, is the agent who negotiated Auston Matthews’ five-year contract extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs last month.

That $58 million deal made the Phoenix-born Matthews — the 2016-17 Calder Trophy winner as the NHL’s pinnacle rookie — the second one-highest paid participant within the league, in a town that follows its Maple Leafs more intently than the Queen. “No doubt, from developing up as a Torontonian, I recognize what the Maple Leafs suggest to the city of Toronto and province of Ontario and Leaf’s enthusiasts around u . S. A .,” Moldaver said. “I lived via that mentality. You can call it serendipity, or luck, that of all of the locations Auston was given drafted, it changed into Toronto’s town.

Knowing what (hockey) manner, there doesn’t harm.” Hockey has supposed masses to Moldaver. He did an internship with sports activities organized in his Colby years, and he realized early his calling came from marrying his pastimes in hockey and business. He moved to Los Angeles nearly right away after graduating from Colby in 2004, and he’s now not seemed again because. Last summertime, he left Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for Wasserman/Orr, while Wasserman bought a large stake in Bobby Orr’s agency bearing his name.

Wasserman represents greater than 3,000 athletes, including one in all four principal sports activities, expert golf, movement sports, and the Olympics. Names like Giancarlo Stanton (Yankees), Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City Thunder), Andrew Luck (Indianapolis Colts), and Rickie Fowler (PGA golfer) dot Wasserman’s patron list. On the hockey side, Wasserman/Orr represents two of the brightest young stars in the sport in Matthews and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, who hold the two priciest contracts within the NHL.

Along with colleagues Jeff Jackson and Dave Gagner, Moldaver also works with Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy and Roman Josi of the Nashville Predators, Aaron Ekblad of the Florida Panthers, and Alex DeBrincat of the Chicago Blackhawks. If you advised me 15 years ago, a nerdy youngster from Toronto, that I’d be paired with human beings like Jeff and Dave and representing someone like Auston, I wouldn’t have believed you,”

Moldaver said. “I continually had a passion for the sport. If I couldn’t play at the very best degree, I knew that I nevertheless wanted to be involved. I’m a fan of many sports activities. However, hockey has had the most important impact on my life. It’s had the most important impact, each in my view and professionally. I’m indebted to every person who’s helped me get here to where I am now.” Moldaver isn’t joking when he says he recalls everyone among his six collegiate goals.

He’s additionally not joking while he says what he found out at Colby helped him construct the muse for his profession as a hockey agent. Shoulder injuries reduce appreciably into Moldaver’s playing time at Colby. He’d favored having played extra games for a group that gained 62 of them in the course of his four years on campus — and lately, he ribbed former Colby’s head educates and present-day Harvard assistant Jim Tortorella approximately his minutes while the pair crossed paths in Boston.

A lot of my experience as a participant on the D-III degree organized me, though I likely didn’t understand it on time, to recognize the player mentality,” Moldaver stated. “Having shoulder dislocations, more than one separations, and going via that experience as a player, developing up as a person and seeking to be an athlete at university stage — you take your playing revel in, each right and bad, and wrap it into one. That’s all from my time at the campus.”
Moldaver remains related to lots of his former Colby teammates. Some he talks to regularly, a few occasions, and a few he needs he’d make time to reconnect with.

There’s a bond that comes from sharing a tiny dressing room at Alfond Rink — or any rink, at any level within the sport of hockey — that’s difficult to duplicate outside the competition. “I pass over the guys. All of them,” Moldaver stated. “That’s no longer to say I don’t omit to be a pupil. However, I ignored being immersed in it with the alternative gamers at the team. I pass over that. It’s thinking about practice, looking to get better, seeking to win games on the street, looking to win games at domestic, and all of the funny stuff that goes on inside the locker room.

I nevertheless name myself an honorary Mainer. I’m proud of my association with Colby. I’m very proud to be a Colby Mule, pleased with my time there. I want to do all I can to see Colby hockey stays sturdy due to the fact I’m proud to mention I’m an alumnus. I suppose my tale, whether you’re a hockey fan or now not, is set human beings following their passions.”