When he was a young kid, Pete Cannarozzi would go to Blackhawks’ games with his father. Cannarozzi, who was born and raised in Chicago, wasn’t much of a hockey fan. But he was a big fan of the organist.
Sixty years later, Cannarozzi now sits in the organist chair for the New Jersey Devils. And on Friday night when the Devils host the San Jose Sharks, Cannarozzi will be playing the keys in his 1,000th NHL game.
“I could never have imagined,” he said reflecting on his time with the Devils, which began 25 years ago. “It’s a blessing.”
Cannarozzi began playing organ at 12 years old, taking basic lessons from a neighbor. When the nuns at his Catholic school learned that he could play the organ, they asked him to play mass.
“I said sister, I have baseball practice. She said, ‘finish mass, then you can go play baseball,’” Cannarozzi laughed. “I learned to play in church. I was not trained at all. I played completely by ear.”
It wasn’t until he attended university at Indiana State that Cannarozzi was introduced to actual music theory and technique.
“I would play all these things. When I got to university, they had labels for things I was already doing,” he said. “This is an A minor 9 chord. This is a C pentatonic scale. All these theoretical labels with what I was doing. Which made me a street player and school player combined.”
After graduating, he moved to New York City in 1979 and began working in a music studio, working on jingles, albums and film scores. He worked on many projects over the next two decades when one day, in 2001, the Devils called the studio looking for a new organist.
“It was an opportunity that I saw. I said, this is the Devils, the NHL. This is big time,” he reminisced. “I never played hockey organ ever. I was learning from the guy filling in. I learned on the job and then created my own style and my own way of doing things. It progressed from there.
“I learned quickly. I took direction well and knew what song to play. I did a lot of research for songs on timeouts, penalties, opposing penalties, goal flourish. I learned that all along the way.”
It didn’t take long for Cannarozzi to become a hockey and Devils fan.
“I fell in love with the team when I started the job,” Cannarozzi said. “I realized what a great organization this is. They’re a family organization. They’re a classy organization. It was that way right from the start. They really took care of me.”
Two years after joining the Devils, Cannarozzi found himself tapping the keys during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Anaheim Ducks. He can still remember the final minutes of the game and hectic atmosphere in the arena.
“The building was electric. I get chills now just thinking about it,” he said. “Everyone is in your headset saying when the clock his zero, we’ll do this. When the Cup comes out, we’ll do this.”
On another occasion, the power went out in half of the arena during a game for one hour, 40 minutes. And it fell on the game entertainment crew to keep things moving until power could be restored.
“It was like, ‘okay Pete play. Okay music play. Okay play this video.’ We did a round robin for an hour and 40 minutes,” Cannarozzi said. “I had almost exhausted all of the 1,000 songs that I knew. That was a really cool experience for me.”
Cannarozzi could never have imagined when he started with the Devils in 2001 that he would still be playing after all these years.
“Even though there was no guarantee that I would come back, year after year they always asked me back,” he said. “I always came back.”
Cannarozzi, who has only missed six games in the past 25 years at various junctures, really enjoys accompanying Arlette for the National Anthem and doing a goal flourish after Adam Hamway’s goal announcement.
“For a musician, it’s not about technique. It’s about the right sound, the right time and the right song,” he said. “You don’t have to be a fantastic musician, but you have to know all those other things and take direction well.”
Cannarozzi is as passionate about playing in his 1,000th game as he was in his first game as he was playing Catholic mass as a youth. And he feels lucky to have been able to make a career out of music for the past 40 years.
“I was a full-time musician. I made my career and my living just playing music until the music business tanked around 2007,” he said. “I was able to stay in it thanks to the Devils and my home studio. I’m blessed that I can do this and earn a living.”
