Color of Hockey: Brooks growing in role as Utah skill development coach

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles Utah Hockey Club skill development coach Nathaniel Brooks.

Nathaniel Brooks says being a skill development coach for the Utah Hockey Club has been a two-way street.

He’s helping teach prospects to become pros for the NHL’s newest team while he continues to hone his craft at the NHL level.

“I’ve learned to take the data that we accumulate and put it into my messaging and training so we’re essentially not wasting any time with players,” he said. “I think I’ve also learned understanding personality types, how people mesh together has helped my coaching so much.”

Brooks, in his third NHL season, was among the coaches, players, executives, staff members and other hockey assets from the inactive Arizona Coyotes that relocated to Utah on April 18.

But Brooks, a Toronto resident, has been to Salt Lake City only a half dozen times since the move. Instead, he spends his time with prospects at Tucson, Utah’s American Hockey League affiliate, or visiting players like forward Jonathan Castagna, selected in the third round (No. 70) of the 2023 NHL Draft, at Cornell University or at home coaching overseas prospects via Zoom.

“I just got back from Tucson on a Friday, went out to Cornell, out to Sault Ste. Marie after that,” he said in early November. “You know, just constant, constantly collecting the air miles.”

The 38-year-old former junior and semipro player is enjoying the ride. He’s dreamed of being an NHL coach and joining a small but growing number of coaches of color in the League. He’s put in the work by climbing the coaching and skill development ladder from the youth hockey to the Canadian college level.

“I felt it was going to take me more time to get into the NHL, but being able to get into this role has been really good,” he said. “It’s amazing. I get to learn, get to work with some elite people from our management to our scouts, to our American League staff, to our NHL staff. I couldn’t be in a better situation.”

Utah general manager Bill Armstrong said Brooks plays a vital role in preparing the organization’s young players for the rigors of the NHL.

“When he works with our prospects, you can see it right away,” Armstrong said. “He’s got a sense about him, a way about him, that he can relate to the prospect because he’s been in a lot of different leagues as a player and coach, and he’s really worked hard at studying the development game.

“Instead of us waiting for that player to get here (Utah) and all of a sudden we tell them that they’re doing 55 things wrong, he helps them as they’re playing, whether in juniors or college, grow their game and learn a little about where their game has to get to the pro level. And he's growing along with our prospects and finding better ways to teach them and get them to absorb the information quicker.”

Before joining Utah, Brooks was at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) from 2014-22, rising from an assistant and skill development coach to a full-time associate coach.

He coached in the Greater Toronto Hockey Association for Forest Hills from 2013-19 and Don Mills from 2019-21 and received the league’s Herb Ebisuzaki Coaching Award (GTHL) in 2019.

Brooks, who played in the GTHL, Ontario Junior Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and United States Hockey League, said he was born into a hockey-obsessed family.

He and his father, Kirk Brooks, are co-founders with retired NHL forward Anthony Stewart of Seaside Hockey, a program created in 2020 with to help revive hockey in Scarborough, a Toronto suburb.

The community has a rich history of producing Black NHL players like Stewart and his brother, Chris, Mike Marson, Kevin Weekes, Joel Ward, Anson Carter and Wayne Simmonds.

“On my dad's side of the family, hockey is everybody's kind of first love,” Brooks said. “I’ve got a picture, I’m like, 2 1/2, 3 years old, of him putting on the gear at Christmas for the first time. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with the game.”

Brooks got his NHL coaching break when he and Duante Abercrombie participated in the Coyotes' inaugural coaching internship program at the team's development camp in September 2021.

Their internship was chronicled in "NHL Bound," a four-part series produced in association with NHL Original Productions and directed by Kwame Damon Mason, who produced the 2015 award-winning documentary "Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future."

“It was great for the young kids to see me and Duante doing that,” Brooks said. “But above all else, it got me in the door, actually meeting people face to face. I enjoyed the people I met, and they obviously enjoyed me, too.”

Armstrong said team officials were impressed by Brooks’ work at the development camp and by his resume, and they hired him as skill development coach on July 14, 2022.

“I knew of him coming into our organization, but I know people that knew him long before, from my agent to kids in youth hockey that Nathaniel worked with doing skill development,” Armstrong said. “His reputation is impeccable. He’s been a great add to our organization.”

Brooks and Abercrombie have remained close after the Arizona internship. Abercrombie, a former assistant at NCAA Division III Stevenson University near Baltimore, went on to serve as a coaching development associate with the Toronto Maple Leafs last season.

On April 18, he was named coach of Tennessee State University NCAA Division I men’s program, which will become the first hockey team at a historically Black college or university (HBCU) when it debuts in 2025-26.

“I think it's amazing,” Brooks said. “He's now going to be a part of history. I'm looking forward to see the job he's going to do. I know he's going to do a great job, but it's really exciting. Him and I stay in touch quite a bit. I'm his biggest fan for sure.”

The two coaches are members of the NHL Coaches’ Association’s BIPOC Program, an initiative that aims to support coaches of color in several areas, including skills development, leadership strategies, communication tactics and networking.

“Nate is inspiring underrepresented communities to envision themselves coaching in the NHL,” NHLCA executive director Lindsay Pennal said. “His role with the Utah Hockey Club highlights the League is continuing to embrace diversity and signals progress in breaking down the social and cultural obstacles that have traditionally kept Black coaches from fully participating at the highest levels of the sport.”