One of Jake Reynolds‘ goals as a teenager was to be named Deseret News All-State as a high school athlete.

That goal was realized in 2002, when Reynolds — as a 5-foot-10 senior guard at Waterford High in Sandy, Utah — was named Class 1A MVP.

His current goal? Bring a fourth Stanley Cup to New Jersey.

Reynolds, a Utah native and 2005 Utah Valley University graduate, is the president of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The Devils are part of the Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment portfolio, alongside the Washington Commanders, Philadelphia 76ers and other sports and entertainment entities. (Co-founder David Blitzer is also part owner of Real Salt Lake and the Utah Royals along with Jazz and Utah Hockey Club owner Ryan Smith.)

In 2019, at age 35, Reynolds was named to Sports Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40″ list when he was Chief Revenue Officer for HBSE. Later that year, he was named Devils team president.

In October, Reynolds sat down for an interview in a conference room next to his office at the Prudential Center. It was early in the NHL season and early on a Monday afternoon — less than an hour before a Columbus Day game against the Utah Hockey Club. (The Devils will play in Salt Lake City for the first time Saturday.)

Reynolds’ parents, who live in Utah and were already Utah Hockey Club season ticket holders, had taken an overnight flight from Salt Lake City to catch the game.

“I remind them constantly that their grandchildren’s livelihoods are dependent on how the Devils do, so the Devils still will need to remain the No. 1 team in the house,” Reynolds said. “(Utah) can be the No. 2 team and they can be the favorite Western Conference team, but the Devils still need to hold court there.”

Reynolds, a married father of three, talked about his career path, raising a family in professional sports and being “100-point ready.”

This interview has been edited for clarity:

Deseret News: How did you go from a private school in Sandy, Utah, to a sports executive in Newark, New Jersey?

Jake Reynolds: (I’m the) youngest of five kids. My oldest sister graduated from BYU and started working in sports. So, from the time I was 9 years old, I had to kind of have exposure to sports business and learned very early on that that is what I wanted to do.

Sports had obviously played a very integral and impactful part of my life up to that point, but my junior year of college, I had an opportunity to go do an internship with the Indiana Pacers.

Went there, fell in love with the experience, fell in love with the environment, fell in love with the culture of sports and entertainment as a whole.

I had the opportunity to go back there and start in their ticket sales department, right out of school. Spent 13 months with the Pacers and then had the unique opportunity to come out here to New Jersey and help open up what is now MetLife Stadium for the New York Giants.

I ultimately knew I wanted to get into leadership and had the opportunity to go down to (Washington), D.C., as part of Monumental Sports, which is the (NBA’s Washington) Wizards, the (NHL’s Washington) Capitals and the (WNBA’s) Washington Mystics, and kind of started my leadership career down there.

I spent three years in D.C. Unbelievable experience and then had the opportunity to come to Philadelphia and become a part of (Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment). That was 11 years ago. Scott O ‘Neil had just been named CEO, Chris Heck had been named CRO — two individuals who’ve been instrumental throughout my career. Scott is my brother-in-law, too. Obviously family ties but being able to work for someone like him and be able to continue to evolve and learn this industry — incredible experience.

I spent four and a half years solely focused on the Sixers business, spent two years then coming up and down the turnpike between the the Devils and the Sixers, and then came into my current role in 2019.

It’s been a fun run and a fun ride. I’ve been really fortunate to work for some really good people who have certainly helped me along the way.

DN: What advice would you give to somebody who’s coming right out of school and wants to do something similar?

JR: The first thing I tell people is, find something that you are passionate about that you love to do. I’m 17 years into my career and I’m still incredibly grateful and appreciative that I get to do what I get to do every single day, because I absolutely love it.

So find something you love to do in an industry that you love, and then go work for amazing people. Work for people who are going to support you, who are going to invest in you, who are going to give you the resources to be able to continue to grow and learn and develop, and it’ll put you on a pretty good career path.

Shortcuts don’t get you to the top. They’re only going to get you to the middle.

DN: What did you learn from the rebuild you went through in Philadelphia? And also the Devils nearing the end of a rebuild in 2019?

I would say they were a parallel path in many ways. Obviously, the Devils were a couple years later, but there were certainly parallels that we were able to pull from that as we were looking to build something that was sustainable.

I’ll tell you a couple of the key pieces from my perspective. No. 1, you have to have a committed ownership group who has the discipline and has the patience to be able to build something the right way.

We’re very fortunate that (HBSE founders) David Blitzer and Josh Harris understand that.

Shortcuts don’t get you to the top. They’re only going to get you to the middle. To build something truly sustainable where we are going to be able to compete for a Stanley Cup or an NBA championship year in and year out, you have to be able to build the team the right way. And so we’ve been fortunate that we’ve had that in our ownership group.

I’ve gotten the chance to spend some time with Ryan Smith and I can tell you — I think he’s got a great track record of the work that he’s done on the Jazz side. I think he’s going to bring that same thing to the Utah Hockey Club.

The second piece is aligned vision and roadmap of the front office, between the sporting side and the business side.

And then the third piece is — we have a phrase in here and I’ve used this since I’ve got to this organization — are we 100-point ready? And the thought process behind that is if your hockey club is 100 points throughout the season, you’re typically a playoff team, and you’re going to be in a position where you should be contending for a cup.

And so are you prepared for when that opportunity comes, both in terms of the fan experience and the opportunity and the environment that you create for your fans? Is the business prepared to be able to capitalize on that opportunity and that momentum? And can you carry forward the momentum that you’re seeing on the ice off the ice in terms of the fan experience in the business?

If you have those three components, it usually sets you up to be well prepared for a successful run.

DN: Would you say you are 100-point ready?

We were tested on that a couple years ago. The Devils had a drought for a very historic organization that has three cups (1995, 2000, 2003). We had gone a number of years without making the playoffs. And we were somewhat of an unsuspecting team. I think internally we believed. But externally — I think there was, OK, they’re really young. They’re just starting to put these pieces together. Let’s see what the process looks like.

And we jumped out of the gates (in 2022-23). Jack Hughes got off to a career start, we won 13 games in a row. And so that was the ultimate test for us internally is, OK, are we prepared for this? I look back on this now and I can confidently and proudly say we were ready for that.

We won the first-round playoff matchup against the (New York) Rangers across the river, which is always a great thing around these parts. (Game 7) was the most nervous I’ve ever been before any sporting event in my entire life. But the end outcome was exactly what we had hoped for.

And so you had all that success in terms of on the ice, and then off the ice we set organizational records across every major revenue category from ticket sales to premium sales, to sponsorship, to entertainment, to ratings. So it was a very, very successful run and a great indicator that we were 100-point ready. And now it’s, how do we continue to build off of the momentum that we’ve had both on and off the ice?

DN: What are you most responsible for and what are you most accountable for?

JR: The fun part is it changes constantly. And that’s kind of what I enjoy is it is constantly moving. There’s constantly different challenges ahead. At the end of the day, what we are trying to create here is: One, we want to create the best place in the world to work. And so for me, it’s the environment that our employees get to walk into every single day. The second piece I would say is we are trying to create a world-class fan experience for everybody who walks through (the Prudential Center), whether it’s a Devils fan, whether it’s an opposing fan, whether it’s the first time someone’s coming through this building, or whether it’s for Justin Timberlake coming tomorrow night. We want this to be a world-class fan experience for everybody coming through these doors.

And I’d say the other piece for us is leveraging the platform that we have to drive meaningful change in the community. There are very few things in the world that we live in today that bring people together like sports. That’s one of my favorite things about it. We live in a very divisive world. Sports is one of those great unifiers and connectors.

And we want to bring a fourth Stanley Cup to New Jersey. I’ll throw that one in there because that is always, always the goal and always top of mind in terms of what we’re doing.

There are very few things in the world that we live in today that bring people together like sports.

DN: How ingrained in the community is the team, and is there room to grow?

One of the things that we love is we are the only professional sports team that represents New Jersey. There are other teams that play in New Jersey but carry a New York name. We take a tremendous amount of pride in being New Jersey’s only professional sports team.

It’s also incredibly impactful and valuable when you have the buy-in from the players who are the face of this organization and don’t just say the right things, but actually back it up with their actions. Arguably one of my favorite days of the entire year is when we go do hospital visits with our partners at RWJBarnabas. Our players go and they meet with kids who are sick or in the hospital. And to be able to see the impact that I think they have on those children and just what that can do to someone’s day who may be struggling — it’s emotional. It’s eye-opening for me every single time.

That is one example of what our players do. There are so many others that we can provide, whether it’s Jack and Luke Hughes and their engagement with a local hockey program called Hockey New Jersey that we partner with, which is providing accessibility and the opportunity for kids who otherwise may not have the means to play the sport of hockey to be able to participate in that. And then finding extensions on that, whether it’s a reading program that they’re about to launch through that same program to be able to get kids more engaged in reading and something that they love to do.

You start to see these bits and pieces and you find what matters to our players and how can we get them out there into our community and let them live that by example.

DN: What’s it like to raise your kids so close to a big stage like this?

It’s been so fun to give them — it’s the same reason I love sports and the community of sports. It allows them to be a part of something that is so much bigger than them, that’s such a larger part of a bigger community.

And then the lessons that they can learn through that — for me, I look back on my life and so many of the lessons I’ve learned and the qualities I have established have been through sports or have been through being able to be a part of something like this.

It can be really challenging. … It’s a lot of nights, it’s a lot of weekends and so being able to use that as a vehicle to either teach lessons or to create communities or to create memories with them is something that is so special and unique about my position and my job.

DN: What about the Utah market is good for the NHL?

The Utah market in general is so unique. I talked a lot about community, and I don’t think that there are many markets out there that are a better display of community than what you see in Utah.

And I think that’s been on full display just in terms of how they have embraced this team with open arms.

They embrace people coming in. And I think that that is one of the rare things that Utah has to offer. And I think that that has been on full display. And so you see those indicators, and it gives me a tremendous amount of confidence that Utah is not going to just be a hockey market, it is going to be a thriving hockey market.

And more importantly — a thriving and emerging sports and entertainment market in this country. I think it’s been probably one of the sleeping giants for the last couple years.