Green Bay captain Brady O’Malley has not been the flashiest player on the ice in his last three seasons in the USHL but instead focuses on the plays that fans don’t always notice, like hits and blocks.
While he has never cracked the top 10 in points, goals or assists for the club in a single campaign, the defenseman has reached a milestone that not many of his teammates will have the chance to do: play at least 150 games in a Gamblers uniform.
O’Malley became the seventh player in franchise history to total 150 career USHL games last Saturday when he hit the ice against the Fargo Force at the Resch Center.
O’Malley, who joins a list of players that includes former NHL defenseman Jeff Finger and current University of Alaska Fairbanks forward Misha Danylov to achieve the feat, said he’s grateful to have spent his entire career with Green Bay.
“I think it’s, in my opinion, the best spot to play junior hockey,” O’Malley said. “I think just the people that surround the program are unreal with the staff, the fans and the boys for sure, so I just feel lucky to be here.”
O’Malley was born in Ann Arbor and grew up playing for the Compuware Youth Hockey AAA and Victory Honda AAA squads, and was taken in the sixth round of the 2021 USHL Draft by the Gamblers. In his final season with Victory Honda, O’Malley totaled 45 points off five goals and 40 assists before heading to Green Bay.
O’Malley said his family, which is originally from Canada, inspired him to pursue hockey and the Ann Arbor area was a great place to develop his skills.
“That area is just a really good spot for hockey,” he said. “I think there’s hockey everywhere. The development program was right there when I was growing up, and that’s where I started skating, and then there’s just so much hockey with the University of Michigan and the Detroit Red Wings.”
In his first season with the Gamblers, O’Malley scored one goal and dished out 10 assists through 58 games to help Green Bay to a third place finish in the Eastern Conference before bowing out to the Muskegon Lumberjacks in the quarterfinals of the Clark Cup in a winner-take-all game five matchup.
O’Malley said the one thing he’s kept with him from his first season with the team is to be a good teammate.
“Those older guys really were nice to me, and it made it easy for me [in my first year], so I try to do the same for the kids that are coming in now as well,” he said. “It’s a tough transition to the USHL as a player, but I think the staff here helped me a lot and the guys as well.”
The next season, O’Malley was selected as the captain of the Gamblers and held onto that title going into his final year with the team. In his sophomore season in the USHL, O’Malley recorded two assists in the regular season as Green Bay once again fell in the quarterfinal round of the Clark Cup, this time to the Madison Capitols.
With a lot of learning experiences in his first season wearing the “C” on his jersey, O’Malley said it’s been a huge honor.
“I think it’s all about just helping guys out,” he said. “I think just being vocal in the room and trying to push the group in the right direction, and with [Elliot Gulley] this year, that’s been awesome. He’s such a great guy, and to have him kind of as a tandem leader has been unreal, and I think it’s working really well.”
This season, O’Malley has led a Gamblers squad that recorded its second-highest winning streak in franchise history earlier this season with 14 consecutive victories and now sits second in the Eastern Conference with 51 points and a 24-9-2-1 record.
O’Malley, whose defensive unit owns the fifth-lowest goals against in the league, said this year’s team is the tightest group he’s seen in his three years.
“I think we just have a lot of guys that are buying into the structure,” he said. “We’re just buying into our plan, and it’s been working for us, so guys are working hard at it.”
The 6’2’’ defenseman describes himself as a hard-nosed D-man who plays a simple game and said he uses his physicality to break up plays.
“It doesn’t have to be any massive hit, but if you can get a body on someone and help you get the puck, it’s always good,” O’Malley said. “I just try and kill plays as fast as I can, help out guys on breakdowns and try and break it out as fast as possible.”
O’Malley’s style caught the eye of Brown University head coach Brendan Whittet, who offered him a spot on one of the oldest collegiate programs in the nation.
O’Malley said he loved his initial visit before he officially committed to Brown.
“The staff there was awesome,” he said. “I met some of the guys, so I’m really excited about that and just hoping to have a good couple years there.”
For the remainder of the season, O’Malley said he’s focused on being the best leader he can be in order to help the Gamblers lift their fifth Clark Cup. To do that, he said he’s relying on what he’s learned from a former Green Bay captain – head coach Patrick McCadden.
“He’s the only guy that’s been here, all three years, and just working with him since my first year as my defensive coach and transitioning into the head coach, it’s been awesome,” O’Malley said. “I think I definitely got better as a player from a lot of development here, but I think the biggest thing is just the person I’ve become. I’m definitely different than when I came in here as an 18-year-old. I think that’s again from just really good people.”
