Former voice of Wildcat hockey makes a name for himself with San Jose Barracuda

Nick Nollenberger, the voice of the San Jose Barracuda, is living the dream — an outcome his time in Tucson helped facilitate.

The Santa Cruz, Calif. native is the Barracuda’s media relations and broadcasting manager and graduated from the University of Arizona in 2014. The Barracuda are the AHL affiliate of the San Jose Sharks.

“It’s a dream (come) true, I grew up a Sharks fan, I played for the San Jose Jr. Sharks, my dream of being a broadcaster started with the Sharks, I looked up to guys like (Sharks radio play-by-play) Dan Rusanowsky and (Sharks TV play-by-play) Randy Hahn and now they’ve become friends, mentors,” Nollenberger said. “I’ve been doing it for nine years and I never take it for granted, it’s something that I’m living out a childhood dream.

“My goal (is) to get to the NHL and hopefully that will end up happening one day, but while I’m here with this team it couldn’t be any better and I couldn’t ask for a better set up, so yeah, it’s a dream come true, it’s amazing.”

Nollenberger, who was the IOA/American Specialty Barracuda Person of the Year Award in 2022, also worked for the Pac-12 Network and has been featured on NBC Sports Bay Area.

He and his dad used to listen to Rusanowsky starting when he was about four.

“I got a twin brother and we used to play floor hockey, mini sticks and he would not let me play unless I called the game and we were like, four or five years old.” Nollenberger said. “So, in certain ways this has been my destiny and I always told people I’m a little bit one dimensional because this is really all I wanted to do my whole life.

“I wasn’t gonna be a pro athlete, I wanted to be a broadcaster,” he added. “So, this has been something I’ve wanted to do forever.”

After going to Cabrillo College in Aptos, Calif., he found the UA was the perfect fit for him.

“When I started going through school, kind of looking at colleges and how I was gonna do it, I kind of had to do some research on how I was gonna accomplish the goal,” Nollenberger said. “U of A ended up being like a perfect place for me because it’s got a good broadcasting program, but it doesn’t have maybe the participants that, like ASU has or like Syracuse or Missouri.

“So, I think it gave me more of an opportunity, because I transferred in from a junior college, I was a little bit behind the eight ball, but it was perfect for me, I called hockey. I called other sports, it was amazing.”

After his time at the UA’s journalism school and student radio station KAMP, he went to the Kannapolis Intimidators, single-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox and then the Odessa Jackalopes of the North American Hockey League before coming back to Northern California.

Nollenberger helped out Jonathon Schaffer, who would go on to become the voice of the Roadrunners this season.

“He was a great boss to me, he taught me a lot,” Schaffer said. “I mean, it’s not every day you’re in college working for a pro hockey team. It was really fun working for Nick (for) two seasons.

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“He also gave me the needed time off to pursue other opportunities with broadcasting with the San Jose Spartans team, going on trips for sports, covering other tournaments and stuff, so he was very flexible with the hours to give me my opportunities as well and yeah, it was just fantastic working with him.”

Schaffer said Nollenberger was one of his first calls when he got the Roadrunners’ play-by-play job.

“He was pretty stoked to hear that I got the play-by-play job and it’s just been awesome, going from intern to his side, kind of learning from him to now calling games side by side too.”

When Nollenberger came back to the Tucson Arena with the Barracuda it was familiar, yet new.

“This is the first place technically I ever called a hockey game so I hold it like really near and dear to my heart,” Nollenberger said. “It’s crazy because we used to call the games from the other side and this building was completely different looking.

“I always look at U of A as my first real stepping stone for this dream to become reality, I look back on my time calling U of A games as the first step to following my dreams.”

While at UA, Nollenberger would call Wildcat hockey games on YouTube or on the student radio station.

“There were certain games I just called for KAMP radio and I don’t know if I had anybody listening, but it was the perfect kind of way for me to get started,” Nollenberger said. “I was terrible at the time, but again, I look back up at that time (as) sort of the best experiences.”

Slap shots

The Roadrunners (29-25-3-2) return to action on Saturday for a two-game series at the first place Colorado Eagles (34-15-5-3).

After sweeping San Jose over the weekend, Tucson is three points back of the sixth place Barracuda and six points out of four place, the last home ice advantage in the first round spot.

On Saturday, Barracuda forward Andrew Poturalski broke the franchise’s points in a season record (61) and then on Sunday he broke their season goals record (26). Tucson center Andrew Agozzino, who had a hat trick on Saturday, had held San Jose’s goal record, set in 2022-23.