At 21 years old, Don La Greca, a member of the Devils fan club, had the chance to participate in the team\u2019s \u201cDinner with a Devil\u201d event. He was scheduled to dine with Jim Korn, who played for the Devils from 1987 to 1990.<\/p>\n
But plans changed. Korn was unable to attend, and La Greca was reassigned to a different table, one that would change his life.<\/p>\n
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Instead of dining with Korn, he found himself seated with the Devils’ broadcasting team: Peter McNabb, Chris Moore, and Gary Thorne. He told them about his dream of becoming a broadcaster. Thorne wished him luck.<\/p>\n
Korn missing that dinner turned out to be a twist of fate that would shape La Greca\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
On July 8, 2025, at 57 years old, Don La Greca was announced as the new play-by-play announcer for the New Jersey Devils on MSG.<\/p>\n
After years of serving as co-host of the Don, Hahn & Rosenberg podcast, hosting the New York Rangers\u2019 pregame and postgame radio shows since the 2005-06 season, and working as the Rangers\u2019 backup radio play-by-play voice, La Greca is finally living his childhood dream.<\/p>\n
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When MSG offered him the job, his answer was immediate: \u201cAbsolutely, I\u2019m interested. This is my dream job.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he had to sit on the news for two weeks before it became public.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were so many people I wanted to tell, people I grew up with, Devils fans, coworkers,\u201d La Greca said. \u201cIt was really difficult when they were asking, \u2018How many Rangers games do you think you\u2019ll get this year?\u2019 and I had to just play the fool.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lifelong Devils fan, La Greca was born in Hawthorne, New Jersey, and attended his first game on February 22, 1987. He went to every home game during the Devils\u2019 1988 playoff run and quickly fell in love with both the team and with hockey.<\/p>\n
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He even got the team’s logo permanently inked on his body.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got that right after they won in 2000, so it\u2019s 25 years old, and it doesn\u2019t look great anymore, unfortunately,” he said, referring to the NJ Devils Stanley Cup that is still on his leg.<\/p>\n
Not only was La Greca hooked on the Devils, but he was especially fascinated with broadcasting. In a household where hockey wasn\u2019t watched, it was the voices on the air who taught him the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey taught me what a two-line pass was, what offside was, what icing meant,\u201d he recalled. \u201cIt reminds me that when I broadcast, someone out there might be watching or listening to the game for the first time, and they\u2019re going to learn through me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Now, as the Devils\u2019 play-by-play voice for the 2025-26 season, La Greca couldn\u2019t be more thrilled.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing the Devils’ broadcaster is exciting just because that\u2019s the team I grew up following,\u201d he said. \u201cBut also, to be part of a team. You are part of the team. You’re not on the outside covering it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The road wasn\u2019t easy. La Greca applied for the Devils\u2019 broadcasting job three times before finally getting the call. His years with the Rangers, his patience, and his passion all led to this moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI keep thinking about that story, sitting at that dinner table when I was 21,\u201d he said. \u201cNow I\u2019m calling games for the team that\u2019s been pumping through my blood for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Now, nearly four decades after that dinner-table conversation, Don La Greca will sit behind the mic, not just as a broadcaster, but as the voice of the team that taught him to love the game.<\/p>\n
Photo Credit:\u00a0\u00a9 Paula Barbagallo – Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 21 years old, Don La Greca, a member of the Devils fan club, had the chance to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5109],"tags":[201,20587,21241,5,21240,20621,576,151,35,5185,5184,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-119114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-jersey-devils","8":"tag-devils","9":"tag-don-la-greca","10":"tag-gary-thorne","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-jim-korn","13":"tag-la-greca","14":"tag-new-jersey","15":"tag-new-jersey-devils","16":"tag-new-york-rangers","17":"tag-newjersey","18":"tag-newjerseydevils","19":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114828757265077171","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}