The New York Rangers eliminated the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night 1-0 earning a trip to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 20 years. The man of the match was clearly Henrik Lundqvist, who had stood on his well-coiffed head since the second round.
The game winning goal was scored by Dominic Moore a third/fourth line center who has assimilated well into the Rangers lineup after taking over a year away from the NHL. The emotions as the final seconds ticked away were barely contained by fans and players alike. It’s hard to imagine how that translated to Martin St. Louis and Moore, players who have found refuge on the ice after suffering enormous personal loss.
There are always sports stories that fall under the category of “human interest” but very few can touch your heart like Dominic Moore’s story. St. Louis lost his mother tragically, only days before Mother’s Day two weeks ago. Strange as it seems it was something that seemed to galvanize the Rangers given the circumstances surrounding his mother’s passing.
Dominic Moore’s story goes beyond this season. He attended Harvard College, yes THAT Harvard, where he was a two-time All Ivy League selection. Hardly heralded as the next Wayne Gretzky coming out of school, Moore was taken as the 95th player in the 2000 draft by the New York Rangers. A sparkling three-assist debut in 2004 against (ironically) the Montreal Canadiens got Moore a five game stint in 2004 with the Rangers, but his success was short-lived.
Moore was traded to Pittsburgh after a full season in New York, beginning a nine team in eight-year run that landed him in San Jose with the Sharks in 2012. During Moore’s ongoing hockey journey he met up with his partner in life, Katie Urbanic. The two met at Harvard and while Moore was beginning his NHL carousel, Katie was completing her master’s degree at Boston University. The two were married in a wedding fit for a storybook in Newport, Rhode Island in 2010.
The rest of the story is well documented. Moore left the Sharks playoff run in 2012 after learning that his wife was suffering from Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma, a rare and terminal form of liver cancer. The veteran center walked away from his first love to be with his true love. To hear Moore speak of his wife, it may have been the easiest decision of his career.
Their relationship began in Boston and it was where they returned to take on Katie’s illness. They had started building their home in Cambridge and as her condition worsened, a commitment to complete the condominium became the focus. They wanted to build their home just down the street from the campus where they fell in love and life began together. Even as construction was completed in September 2012, Moore refused to move into the building until his wife could come home with him. She had been with him through every move to every new city, so naturally she would be by his side as they crossed the threshold of their home.
Moore was by her side in the hospital until the very end. He had made a move to get up for a moment, but Katie who had been too weak to even speak, grabbed his hand with surprising strength. He sat back down with her until she was gone. Katie lost her battle with cancer on January 7, 2013. Katie was only 32 years old.
In a world that seemed miles away, and completely insignificant, the NHL had locked its players out. An abbreviated season in 2013 wasn’t even an afterthought for a player that had given up so much. He knew he wanted to play, but still needed time.
When the Rangers reached out to Moore in the summer of 2013, he agreed to resume his NHL career. He played his first home game for the Rangers on October 28, 2013 with the team that helped him realize his dream of playing in the NHL. The 28th would have been Katie Moore’s 33rd birthday. ESPN ran an extraordinary and predictably emotional E:60 piece on Moore's return to Madison Square Garden.
With everything that the Rangers have been through in the grind of an 82 game season and three rounds of playoff hockey, perspective can be found in the eyes of two of New York’s playoff heroes.
“I just feel tremendously proud to be a part of this team,” Moore said following his second game-winning goal of this postseason. “I owe a lot to my teammates for helping me get through this last year and a half. I just feel tremendously proud to be a part of this team, especially with the circumstances of going to the Stanley Cup Finals. It’s an incredible feeling to be able to play for the Cup. . . . The opportunity is something special that you look forward to since you’re a kid.”
The next opponent is unknown for Dominic Moore and his teammates, but just getting this far isn’t good enough. The Rangers will have their hands full with either Los Angeles or Chicago, winners of the last two Stanley Cups. For New York’s journeyman center though, getting back on the ice was the biggest challenge of his career. Playing for his first Stanley Cup will be the easy part.