"He gave me a chance and it changed my life," said St. Louis Blues goalie Carter Hutton, whose first full NHL season was 2013-14 with Korn in Nashville. "I actually waited to watch and see Mitch lift the Cup. He will always have a wide umbrella of goalies he has developed which means a lot to him and us. Now he has the Cup he worked so hard for."
Among coaches, his proteges include the current goaltending coaches of the Toronto Maple Leafs (Steve Briere), Predators (Ben Vanderklok), Carolina Hurricanes (Mike Bales), Winnipeg Jets (Wade Flaherty) and Capitals (Scott Murray), and many more in the AHL.
"He helped me get my foot in door," said Bales, who started as a goaltending development coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins before moving up and winning the Cup twice. "I know what that feeling is, so seeing Mitch do it was pretty special. Everybody in the goaltending world knows how special Mitch has been to the game and to goalies and goalie coaches, and seeing him cement that legacy with his name on the Cup, I felt really happy."
That feeling extended beyond the NHL. Korn worked at Miami University in Ohio as an assistant coach and running the arena starting in 1981. He also started a travelling summer goalie school in 1976 that continues today, with Korn flying to Nashville the morning of Game 4 of the Cup Final to be on site for the start of the 41st year of the camps that bear his name.
"Mitch said all these years how important the camp was to him and how important it is to have an impact and he lived up to those statements by doing that," said Nick Petraglia, who met Korn as a freshman goalie at Miami University in 2000, and recently became the director of external relations there after 10 years as an assistant. Petraglia also helped run Korn's camps for 16 seasons, and said his influence extends to hockey administration.
"It's an immeasurable impact," Petraglia said. "His roots spread so far and into so many areas beyond goaltending. It's got to be thousands. It's easy to think about the impact he's had in the NHL because everybody knows the names but he cares just as much about the squirt hockey player reaching his potential and loving the game, and he treats everyone the same and that's why every single one of us shared in the joy of watching him finally lift the Cup."