Checking In with Comets’ Forward, Jack Malone

Oct 6, 2025

Utica, NY – After participating at NHL training camp in New Jersey, Comets' forward Jack Malone arrived in Utica last week, set to embark on his second season of pro hockey. 

Malone was born in Danville, CA, a mid-sized town about 30 miles east of San Francisco, as the youngest of three with two older sisters. His family lived in the Golden State until relocating to New Jersey when Jack was six, where most of his family is from. He recalls skating on a frozen lake in Monroe, NY with his two older cousins as his earliest memories of getting into hockey and then starting to play competitively in the fall of 2007 at the age of seven.  

It was around the same time that the Prudential Center opened its doors as the new home of the New Jersey Devils. The Malone family had season tickets until Jack was 12, so he had the privilege of attending several games as a kid, marveling at Devils’ star forwards like Zach Parise, Patrick Elias, and Jamie Langenbrunner. Little did he know that he would be playing within the New Jersey organization himself someday. 

Malone attended Delbarton in Morristown, NJ from seventh grade through his sophomore year of high school and then moved to Ohio to play for the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms, an opportunity that he says prepared him well to play at the collegiate level two years later and led to his being drafted by the Vancouver Canucks in the sixth round of the 2019 NHL Draft. 

Malone spent a total of three seasons with the Phantoms, although not consecutively. When he moved to Youngstown at the age of 16, his parents were understandably a little uneasy about their teenager moving away from home for the first time. It was certainly a transition for Jack as well, who recalled being home sick for the first couple weeks and facing the challenge of being the new kid in school, but landing with an amazing billet family put both him and his parents at ease. He has fond memories of the time spent with his billet parents and their two young kids, Danny and Jordan, whom he lived with all three seasons and keeps in touch with to this day.  

Malone played in Youngstown during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons before making his collegiate debut at Cornell in the fall of 2019. When the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down the following year and with Cornell opting out of the 2020-21 hockey season, he decided to play in Youngstown while taking online classes at Cornell before returning to campus for his junior and senior year. 

After his career at Cornell, Malone went on to pursue a master’s degree in finance and play his graduate season at Boston College, a school that he fell in love with as a young kid. “A lot of people from New Jersey go to Boston College, a couple of my dad’s buddies went there, so when I was a kid, we went up there for a couple of football games. They always had a great hockey team and that was one of the first teams I wanted to play college hockey for,” he said. 

As he gears up for his second year of pro hockey, Malone reflected on his rookie season. “It was great. We had a great locker room which is really important. A lot of guys helped me along as a rookie and led the way. Getting the first year under your belt is huge. It’s a bit of transition, not being in college anymore and living with all your buddies, so just getting used to that, but it was a good year and I had a lot of fun.” He also mentioned that some of his favorite experiences from his rookie season were being on the road with the team, particularly the trips to Toronto and Charlotte. 

Away from the rink, Malone enjoys golfing and grabbing dinner with his fellow teammates. To keep the mind sharp, he spends time reading and has a knack for solving Rubix cubes. He said he doesn’t recall his best time, but that it is somewhere around the order of 60 seconds. 

The Comets’ season opener is just four days away. They’ll welcome the Cleveland Monsters to town this Friday October 10th at 7 PM at the Adirondack Bank Center. Tickets are still available and can be purchased by visiting www.uticacomets.com/tickets or calling 315-790-9070.