Daryl Reaugh has seen it all on the ice or in the broadcast booth.
Whether it’s watching the Dallas Stars hoist the Stanley Cup in 1999 or playing for Ken Hitchcock as a member of the Kamloops Blazers, Reaugh has been one lucky individual.
This summer, the off-ice accolades will continue to roll in for the longtime color commentator of the Dallas Stars as he is set to be inducted into the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame in Penticton.
Like many kids who grew up in Canada during the 1970’s, finding inspiration wasn’t difficult for Reaugh who would often play street hockey outside with his makeshift foam pads and baseball glove pretending to be his idol the late Ken Dryden who would win six Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadians.
During an interview with MyPGNow.com, Reaugh stated he had two idols from the Montreal hay days.
“That is who I was on the streets (Dryden) of Prince George as a kid. When I think of that I can smell those pulp mills and can still smell them today, that was the odour of PG as a kid. I was Dryden every single day – but I stated at the Hall of Fame Induction in Toronto back in November, I was as big of a fan of Danny Gallivan as I was Dryden. I loved Danny Gallivan and I loved those broadcasts coming out of the Forum.”
“When I was a kid watching those Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts at five o’clock after the Bugs Bunny, Road Runner hour – I always wanted to play at the Forum and managed to do that. The games there and the Bell Centre now (in Montreal) and the vibe in the city, it is everything as I was a massive Montreal Canadians fan and to go back in there it is a different passion than you experience anywhere else,”
Reaugh grew up playing in the northern capital and had no shortage of fond memories winning a provincial title as a midget player with the Toyota Kings.
“I loved playing for those teams; we pretty had the same group of guys all the way through. Some of my buddies like Wally Payne and Danny Gunton and Kevin Scobie and people like that.”
Reaugh who attended Quinson Elementary and Lakewood Junior High forged his path as an up-and-coming goaltender playing two seasons with the Cowichan Capitals in the BC Junior Hockey League between 1981 and 1983.
From there, he won a WHL title and secured a Memorial Cup berth suiting up for the Kamloops Junior Oilers in 1983-84 where he went 34-10 in the regular season followed by an impressive 14-3 mark in the playoffs.
The franchise was re-named the Blazers the following season (1984-85) where he appeared in 63 more games between the regular season and playoffs.
Reaugh was selected in the 2nd round, 42nd overall by the Edmonton Oilers in the 1984 NHL Draft. However, with stars like Grant Fuhr and Andy Moog between the pipes, his opportunities were few and far between.
The 60-year-old played eight games for the Oilers over three seasons (86-89), spending most of his time in the AHL with its Nova Scotia affiliate as well as a brief stint with the Milwaukee Admirals and Karpat of the Finnish Elite League.
After spending 1989-90 with the Binghamton Whalers, Reaugh got his first true shot in the NHL with the Hartford Whalers going 7-7-1 with 3.15 goals against average and a .889 save percentage.
Reaugh admits the injury bug got in the way of realizing his full potential.
“I really felt like it was starting to come together and got hurt. That sort of pushed me to what came next. My wife was going to school in Boston, and I decided to enroll in this trade and technical school where you get out of it what you put into it.”
“It was eight months and I think I was the only one that got a job out of it,” added Reaugh.
After hanging up the skates in 1993-94, he entered the world of sports broadcasting with the ECHL’s Dayton Bombers.
Luckily for him, he got to work with a familiar face that made the transition a little bit easier.
“Jim Playfair my buddy and former teammate from Fort Saint James was getting his first coaching gig and I helped him out a little bit. I ended up doing play by play because they had fired their last guy and that was my first broadcasting job.”
“From there, I worked my way up a ladder and did a year with the Hartford Whalers doing color and then they were going to move to Raleigh, I didn’t go with them, and this sprouted up in Dallas.”
Similar to the Whalers, the Stars underwent a highly publicized move going from Minnesota to Dallas in 1993.
Reaugh joined the organization in 1995-96 and remembers the early days when the NHL club had to make its mark to earn fans and grow what is now one of the largest minor hockey systems in North America.
He admits the Dallas-Fort Worth area has come a long way after starting out with just three sheets of ice.
“When I first got here there was our practice facility, which was in suburban Dallas and then there were two sheets of ice at malls – one at the Galleria and another that was the size for three-on-three hockey at another mall and that was about it. I think they had the ability to put a sheet in at Fort Worth and now you look at it there are places where they are opening a double sheet and not only are they going to build a new practice facility but a new rink (for the Stars) in the next half dozen years or so,” said Reaugh.
“It was understood that they were going to have to build sheets of ice for grassroots to build the sport. One hand feeds the other, and I think they encircled the city of Dallas, and I think they were eight Star Centre’s that they put up. Then you get enrollment of kids and adult hockey in the evenings. They have a real burgeoning women’s hockey system here now. Through success of the team and they had to be a good team and draw that kind of attention to get people involved.”
The high point was the Stars run to the Stanley Cup where they defeated the Buffalo Sabres in controversial fashion due to Brett Hull’s goal.
“Winning the cup in 1999 and just the way it unfolded with Hull scoring the goal and the controversy involved, my wife was extremely pregnant with our first daughter at the time and I was calling her between periods to make sure she was holding on until I got back home. It was six days after where my daughter came into the world, it was such a heady time.”
Reaugh admitted some of his best memories came during the early years of the Stars’ success in the late 90’s.
“I will never forget the game on New Year’s Eve in 1999 where he scores and hits 600 and thought of the impact. Nobody knew what was going to happen the next year, everybody thought all the computers were going to shut down and we went out as a group downtown at a place we used to celebrate after the game together and there you see on ABC at midnight Brett Hull goal scoring going across the crawl at Times Square. It was surreal.
“I personally loved my early days here. Ken Hitchcock who was my coach in Kamloops – he is the head coach in Dallas, and I still had a little bit of game left and Ed Belfour had a bit of a back issue he was trying to manage, and Hitch would call me up in the morning and asked if I could stop pucks. I was at practice and embedded with the team and had great insight, gave me a workout, and gave the shooters some confidence. I felt if the other goaltenders went down, I could go in and maintain for a little while.”
Reaugh also touched on the Stars Stanley Cup run in the bubble during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic where they fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Stars were primarily based in Edmonton playing in front of no fans while the broadcast team worked remotely in Dallas.
With Texas being the sport hub that it is, the Stars also had to share the spotlight with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Mavericks (NBA). While the Cowboys were top dogs in the market, the comingling of sport stars and their families was another great experience.
“We saw those guys all the time. We were good friends and if somebody had a party or something, there was a mingling of both (Cowboys and Stars). As it worked its way through, there was a bigger bond with the Dirk Nowitzki-era Mavericks when Madonna and him were good friends – now they both have statues in front of the building.”
“It was really special in the late 90’s between the Cowboys and the Stars,” said Reaugh.
“You move to this current generation and because Jamie Benn grew up wanting to pursue baseball, he has leaned more towards this young group of Texas Rangers.”
Last year, Reaugh was named the 2025 recipient of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Foster Hewitt Award.
He is one of four people set to be inducted as part of Class of 2026 during a ceremony at the South Okanagan Events Centre that includes Travis Green, Josh Georges and Malcolm Ashford.
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