RIP Sean Moloney - Long time Western PA goaltending coach

[theconradwaite]

It is with a heavy heart that I share the news that beloved goaltending coach Sean Moloney passed away on Friday, January 19th. Sean has coached with me at Duquesne for over half a decade and had an outstanding and immeasurable impact on our program, especially with our goaltenders.  

Sean had an incredible legacy of coaching stops, at the collegiate level with Chatham & Lebanon Valley at the NCAA D3 level, in the ACHA with Robert Morris University, at Indiana University of PA and the former W&J team, in the NAHL with the Keystone Ice Miners, and with countless schools, teams programs and clinics.

Services have not been announced yet, but I believe the family is planning on something over the weekend of February 3rd & 4th, to allow his extended family and members of the hockey community time to travel. I will share any details when they are finalized. 

Our team will be honoring Sean this Saturday at 8pm before our game at Alpha Ice Complex against IUP. I know a lot of his former players, fellow coaches and more will be in attendance. We are also going to host a Teddy Bear Toss at the game, with donations to go toward a local children’s charity. For years Sean loved volunteering to dress up as Santa around the holidays and he spent the last few seasons lobbying for our program to host one of these events. I can think of no better way to honor him, than to have the first one in his memory. 

Those that knew him, know how much he cared about and gave of himself to others. It would be wonderful to see many from the local hockey community out at the rink Saturday night to support these causes near and dear to Sean’s heart and celebrate his life and legacy. 

-conrad 

Edited January 24 by theconradwaite

[Rewster]

I’m sorry to see this. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to meet or know Mr Moloney. From my understanding, he had a lifelong passion for the game—and especially the goaltending position. He was able to continuously carve out his own, self-made hockey career throughout Western Pennsylvania in several roles that were mostly thankless by any measure of recognition. He was one of the few people that had an energizing hockey aura about him that never faded. He had a hockey playing career that was legitimately enviable and rather trailblazing during a time when Pittsburgh’s youth/minor developmental hockey was nothing compared with what it is today. For any kid with an ounce of athleticism that did not play football in Pittsburgh during the Steelers dynasty in the 1970s (and through the mid-1980s) was unheard of. Not only that, but there was no precedent for a hockey path in or out of Pittsburgh. Sean made his own path from Pittsburgh and made it into playing Canadian Junior A with no blueprint, or no hockey advisors that had connections all over North America that could spread his name. He did it from day 1, and he continued his passion of the game way past the point that most athletes would give up.

Here’s a little more information about his story that most people wouldn’t know.

https://thehockeywriters.com/sean-moloney-an-incredible-journey/

[Law]

Good coach, better man!  Gonna miss him. 

[theconradwaite]

Article in Duquesne’s student paper about Sean 
 

Sean Moloney touched lives of many during time coaching Duq hockey.