Former Broadway Performer Transitions To Sports Entertainment As Las Vegas Market Grows Its Sports Options
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
He’s part-fan, part-Broadway entertainer and part-former hockey player.
This unique blend results in his go-with-the-flow quips, facial expressions and high-energy stoke-the-crowd urgings all calibrated with precision at Vegas Golden Knights home games when he’s on the big video screen at T-Mobile Arena.
As venue host for Golden Knights games since the NHL franchise’s start in 2017, Mark Shunock has converged an experienced hockey brain and genuine love affair for the sport with legit Broadway theater chops and an earnest persona that harkens back to his unpretentious Canadian roots from a 72,000-resident city called Sault St. Marie across the U.S. from the Michigan city bearing the same name.
What separates Shunock from your average pro sports arena hype man are his varied stage, acting and entertainment skills that allow him to look as comfortable hosting musical-themed fund-raiser talent shows for the past eight years as he does working as the official boxing match announcer for Las Vegas-based promoter, Top Rank.
Shunock’s Mondays Dark charity work is based in a 10,000-square-foot events building called The Space, where his 90-minute variety shows that cost people 20 bucks a head to watch in person every other week have raised more than $1 million. Shunock said $330,000 alone were raised just during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Space is west of the Strip across the interstate from the Aria and hosts everything from birthday parties to corporate events.
Shunock’s merging of his stage and sports worlds could not have come at a better time professionally for him.
The entertainment threads of sports, music and acting have been interwoven into all sports events, from NFL Super Bowls to even the NHL events where musical acts play a part of outdoor winter hockey games. Shunock does work for the NHL, too, at these league’s special events.
It’s his not-so-secret sauce — a stage presence combining the poise of a former Broadway “Lion King” and “Rock of Ages” performer with a love for hockey cultivated from the days when he was a back-up goalie for the Ontario Hockey League’s Belleville Bulls while living the “Slapshot” life outside Toronto. If you applied hockey parlance to Las Vegas’ entertainment industry, Shunock is a 200-foot player in the local entertainment biz.
In 1988, his dad also bought the Greyhounds hockey team in his native Sault St. Marie from NHL legendary brothers Phil and Tony Esposito. Some of the NHL’s biggest names like Wayne Gretzky have passed through Sault St. Marie on their paths to stardom. Other NHLers who played in The Soo were the Esposito brothers, Ron Francis, original Golden Knights player Colin Miller and Jerry Korab. So, hockey DNA runs deep in Shunock.
And Shunock is diving deeper into the sports world as the live event voice of Top Rank boxing. He noted he was a boxing fan who now does his homework on Top Rank’s fighters.
“I really enjoyed getting to know the fighters. You see the same fighters every four or six months. You find out who these guys and women are and you get to know their stories,” he said. “They are truly fighting for their lives and you start to care for them. I know it sounds corny. But you to learn where these guys are from and their family situations. You want them to succeed.”
It’s been a memorable transition from stage to sports for Shunock.
“I love the game of hockey. It’s not like it’s foreign to me. With hockey, it’s second nature to me. I’m very passionate about it. I come from a fan’s perspective first. That’s what makes my job so fun. Fans see me as just another fan,” Shunock said. “I had to learn the ropes of boxing. It’s kind of a cool situation. I bring something unique for sports. I didn’t go to school for sports.”
Indeed, in 1996, a full quarter-century ago, Shunock left Sault St. Marie for acting school in New York City.
While Sault St. Marie was known for hockey, the city had another face that helped Shunock — a striving arts and community theater scene that he tapped into that would eventually lead him to study theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.
“Sault St. Marie had a pretty special arts scene. There was community theater, great galleries, amazing restaurants. When the hockey days were over and I finished high school, I got into community theater productions and got the bug.”
At the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, he was among 130 students in a program that had shrunk to 75 students in the second year before Shunock was among only 11 students in the final third year.
After the academy, he performed in plays like the Lion King before Rock of Ages brought Shunock to Las Vegas in October 2012 from Los Angeles after time in New York for a decade and in LA for another eight years or so.
He never left Vegas.
There are rumors Rock of Ages might be coming back.
You might know Shunock as the guy pumping up 18,000 fans at VGK playoff games. But keep in mind the guy who insanely screams, “Woo,!” when the siren is cranked to start a VGK hockey period is the same guy who sung old classics from crooners like Johnny Mathis and Neil Diamond. The dude who goes crazy to fire up the VGK crowds also can carry a tune from the Rat Pack fellas to Michael Buble.
But Shunock is not singing Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” at Golden Knights games.
“There are moments at Golden Knights games when it’s crickets and my boss tells me, ‘Your mic is open. Get ’em going.’ ”
Shunock said he’s working on an album and he’ll have some more details in the next few months.
“I’m grateful to be busy. I was fortunate enough that Top Rank had a bubble (last year). Even the NBA was calling to ask about the Top Rank bubble. — Mark Shunock
And when he’s on the job, whether it’s announcing a Top Rank boxing event or working as an emcee at a VGK game, he relies on his former stage life to stay cool in front of big crowds.
“My entertainment performer background has helped me in the nerve department. Being in front of people is not an issue,” Shunock said.
“Where I get nervous is as a fan watching the guys fight and watching the guys play hockey. When you work for a pro franchise or pro sports, you become passionate about that team and you become a fan,” he said. “But it’s not a job. We do it because we love it.”
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