It’s the late-2000s in Orange Park, Florida. On her way home from work, Mary Ann Musa calls home to her six children – Jordan, Alyssa, Joey, Jack, Gabriella and Jason – saying with a laugh that the house better be in order when she arrives.
Joey puts down his book and hops up to rally his siblings. He takes charge just as he does when it’s time for school in the morning, helping Jason get ready while his parents worry about the rest of the pack. Jack, or “Jackie” as Joey calls him, stops fidgeting with his Rubix cube, but not to be of any help to his siblings. Instead, he follows just behind on his older brother’s heels, antagonizing him as the other five clean up the house.
“Joey [is] more of the voice of reason,” Mary Ann said. “Jack [is] more of the one who makes everybody laugh, like the prankster.”

Downstairs, Mary Ann and her husband Joe find their three-car garage destroyed once again. They look around at the beaten-in extra furniture, broken windows and dimpled walls about to collapse into the other side. Joey, Jack and Jason managed to indent every square inch when practicing their shooting skills, spending hours from morning to night trying to one-up each other.
Now as Minutemen, the two race down the ice during practice. Jack waits for Joey to pass the puck over to him, but Joey calculated a different plan in mind. He leaves his younger brother hanging as he takes a quick shot at the net. Joey misses, the puck dings off the scratched glass stronger than the walls of their garage, and Jack skates his way around the net to face assistant coach Tom Upton while rolling his eyes.
This isn’t the first time the two have shared the sheet, and it’s certainly not the first time the two have butted heads.
“Growing up with Jack, it wasn’t like we were best buddies all the time,” Joey said. “It was kind of built-in competition through everything. You name it, we were competitive about it.”
The two will spend hours upon hours arguing on the golf course. Joey insists Jack cheats, either purposely adding up his score incorrectly or pushing the golf ball over with his foot for a better position. Jack, who always catalyzes the bickering, will constantly talk in Joey and his dad’s ears to throw them off their game and gain another competitive edge on the green. While Joe is usually the one to out-compete his sons, the second-best in the family depends on which brother you ask.
In family pictures, older Alyssa remembers the two trying to prove they were taller than the other by standing as high up on their toes as possible. When the family came together to play board games, it was another battle of the brothers. On family vacations at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, it was a competition to see who caught the most fish or who could catch the biggest one. At Sanibel Island, the siblings hunted around the sand to find the prettiest seashell or the first starfish.
No matter what it was, the brothers created a competition. And if Jack got under Joey’s skin just enough, it was determined that only a boxing match could work it out – but only if Mom wasn’t watching.
“We never wanted to let each other win anything, whether it’s a board game or something pretty stupid,” Joey said. “We were always coming at each other and pushing each other to be better. That’s continued to this day and we still don’t let each other win anything.”
When Friday arrived, the two hopped in the car right after school to head down to their AAA team in Estero. They spent the six-hour ride chatting with Dad about what they could improve on the ice, napping and occasionally memorizing line-by-line the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone DVD that was stuck in their mom’s car’s DVD player.

After years of shooting pucks in the garage and driving down to the only AAA team in Florida, it was time for the two to take their hockey journeys elsewhere.
“They became more worldly [because of hockey],” Joe said. “… They had to mature and learn how to basically live on their own with Mom and Dad not there.”
At 15 years old in 2015, Joey was the first to leave, heading off to Trinity-Pawling High School in New York. When Jack was in the eighth grade, he moved down to South Florida before playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite in 2017.
“I was so sad because growing up it was always so much fun to have everyone in the house,” Alyssa said. “And I felt like [Jack] was just a baby when he left home.”
Jason was seven years old when Joey left for New York and only had three extra years with Jack before he left. Still with a few years left at home, Jason felt the energy dip in the house in the absence of his older brothers. He always tagged along for the competition, whether as a family or with his brothers in baseball and hockey.
“I always looked up to both of them,” Jason said. “They were always getting me to go in the garage with them and shoot pucks with them and just [work] out with them … they always guided me.”
The ice wasn’t always Jack’s first choice, and he only came to realize his path right before moving away from home. He thought his skillset was stronger on the baseball diamond, but realized his speed fit best on the hockey sheet.
Before his youth State Championship baseball game, Jack told his grandmother in the hospital that he would hit a homerun for her. His team was down by three and Jack stepped up to bat with the bases loaded. As promised, he sent the ball sailing over the fence to win the game. To this day, he has the baseball from that moment.
Before Joey made his decision to stick with hockey, he too had his fair share of wins on the field. His travel baseball team bounced between first and second in the nation when he was 12 years old, and the season only came to an end with a loss in the Elite World Series.
Joe, though, knew all three of his sons would stick to hockey no matter what.
After playing in the minor leagues for the Colonial Hockey League’s Flint Bulldogs, the Sunshine Hockey League’s Jacksonville Bullets and the Atlantic Coast Hockey League’s Jacksonville Barracudas during his playing days, “They had no choice,” Joe said. “They were playing hockey before they were conceived – Dad made that a point.”
In Joey’s senior year of high school at Trinity-Pawling, Jack followed and moved to New York as an incoming freshman. For the first time, the brothers competed with each other on the same team.
On senior night, Jack made it a point to outshine his brother with a hat trick, stealing some goals from the graduating class. While definitely not his favorite memory, it’s one Joey will never forget – and Jack will make sure of that too.
By that point, Joey was already committed to Dartmouth College after dreaming since prep school that his NCAA career would start at an Ivy League. After his first season playing with his brother and one season with the British Columbia Hockey League’s Langley Rivermen, Joey was ready to settle in with the Big Green.
Soon enough, his rookie season paused due to COVID-19. Neither Joey nor Jack could stay off the ice for long though, and they both eventually ended up in Odessa, Texas to play for the North American Hockey League’s Odessa Jackalopes.
This time, the brothers not only played on the same sheet, but also on the same line.
“They have another gear to them that I don’t think a lot of kids have as far as [their] drive with hockey,” their skills development coach Matt Culot said. “The way they wake up in the morning with the mindset of wanting to get better is the biggest key I think for both of them. That’s on ice and off ice … [they] always [put] 100 percent into every rep and every situation they’re in. I think that’s what separates them from everybody else.”
When COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, Joey returned to Hanover, New Hampshire while Jack was drafted in the first round by the Madison Capitols of the United States Hockey League.
There in Wisconsin, Jack played under Upton, who was then the Capitols head coach. While his outgoing personality shied away from his head coach for the majority of the season, his offensive ability did not.

“As a player, he was tremendous for us [in Madison] right away,” Upton said. “He’s obviously stronger and bigger now and more polished as a player, but his offensive ability was there even in Madison. I think he had almost 20 goals for us that year as a rookie and [he] helped us do some really good things and go to the Clark Cup Finals. So, as a player, he hasn’t changed too much. He’s always been an offensive player with a lot of work ethic and a lot of pace.”
Jack finished his time in the USHL with the Capitols before being traded to the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders. In the meantime, the impression Jack had on Upton never faded even as he joined the UMass coaching staff in 2022.
At the time, Jack was committed to Boston University, just an 11-minute drive from his dream school Boston College. When Terriers head coach Albie O’Connell parted ways with BU, Jack began searching for other Division I programs around the country. With 12 to 15 schools showing interest, Upton knew the recruitment process needed to be quick.
“I loved him as a player … Absolutely loved him as a person, so the recruiting process started right away the day that I heard he’s not going to BU anymore,” Upton said. “[I] picked up the phone, called him right away, made sure that he’d have interest in coming to UMass and obviously [he] and I getting together again in regards to coach and player, and he was interested from day one.”
From there, Jack, Mary Ann and Joe visited the UMass campus and the coaching staff at Mullins Center. While his parents were in favor of the Minutemen, they wanted their son to make the choice himself between UMass and his other top choice, Michigan State.
A couple of weeks after visiting campus, Jack committed and headed up to Amherst, just a short drive from his dad’s family in Springfield.
“It’s awesome, they come to like every game so I get to see them … and it’s just cool to see a familiar face every weekend,” Jack said.
As a freshman in the 2023-24 season, Jack played in all 37 games and finished with 29 points on 12 goals and 17 assists, including eight goals and seven assists in Hockey East matches. Whether in Orange Park, Hanover or New York where Jason was playing with Trinity-Pawling, all of the Musas celebrated Jack’s early success as a Minuteman. For Joey, while proud of his younger brother, his Dartmouth teammates never failed to remind him which brother had more success at the collegiate level.
“[I] definitely got some chirps from some of my buddies being like ‘What’s going on? Your little brother’s beating you in points this year,’” Joey said.
Jack’s offensive ability was no surprise to Upton.
“He did what I thought he was going to do,” Upton said. “He came in here, he helped produce offensively, brought a great personality to our locker room, [brought] a great personality to our culture, and his work ethic and how hard he plays is the biggest thing that separates him in regards to other offensive players. He truly plays with a lot of jam and a lot of physicality for [a smaller] guy … he had that demeanor that he was going to win puck battles and he was going to finish them.

On Oct. 8, 2023, the brothers met again at Thompson Arena in an exhibition game between the Minutemen and the Big Green. Joey, a senior and alternate captain for Dartmouth, made an impression on head coach Greg Carvel, who sought out the oldest Musa brother to offer him a fifth year to play at UMass after his eligibility with the Big Green expired.
“[Joey] always plays hard … he’s out there running around, throwing his body at people, so it’s very inspiring to me,” Carvel said. “That’s why we brought him in. We knew that’s the makeup of the Musas.”
For the rest of the season, Joey focused his attention on his Dartmouth team and his degree while still keeping UMass in the back of his mind. When the question of transferring came about, Joey didn’t need to think twice about his decision.
“I’ve heard so many great things from Jack about the coaching staff, the facilities and how professional it is here … It was pretty much a no-brainer for me,” Joey said. “… Carvie had talked to me and said he was really interested … I was pretty set on that. You get an offer from a school like UMass, you never pass that up.”
Nothing changed for the two when heading back home for a short time in the summer. They went back for their third year of training with Culot.
At Culot Corner Development, hockey for the Musas doesn’t stop at their own training as they also help coach and train younger players. For both of them, giving back and being a role model to the younger kids who they once were is most rewarding.
“They interact with the kids very well, which is huge for a coach,” Culot said. “Getting kids to buy into what they’re doing is a huge key. Not only do they have that, they have the IQ from playing at such a high level. They’re able to teach the kids [of] all different ages.”
Joey also prepared for UMass that summer, taking advice from his younger brother. Jack told him to “just come ready to play,” leaving Joey in the dark about some things so he could figure out bits and pieces of the UMass culture for himself.
The one thing Joey wishes he was warned of, though? That Jack stole his nickname.
“I’m hearing ‘Moose’ all around the locker room and I’m snapping my neck, but that’s not me,” Joey said. “I wish he would’ve told me to come up with something good to tell the [team] to call me.” Telling his teammates to “‘Just call me Joey right now’” didn’t matter to Jack, of course. He made it a point of emphasis to remind his five-foot-nine brother, or “baby Joey,” that he officially won the height competition – by one inch.
The life-long competitiveness between the two continues at UMass. Their work ethic, ability to step up to the challenge and 100 percent effort to take on every drill, rep, practice and game pushes every Minuteman, no matter their playing style, to be the best player they can be.
Joey takes the more calculated, methodical route that matches his personality in the locker room – one teammate Cam O’Neill would describe as acting like “a dad” to the team, unlike Jack who is “a child at heart.”
The Minutemen to join the brothers for movie nights – O’Neill, Lucas Ӧlvestad, Nick VanTassell and Bo Cosman – would also agree. Starting over the summer and rolling into the 2024-25 season, the group rotates who chooses what movie to watch in their free time. All was well watching Gladiator and Interstellar, or “high-quality movies” as Jack described them. When Joey threw on Inglourious Basterds, the rest unanimously agreed that would be Joey’s first and final turn.
“It was the worst movie I ever watched,” O’Neill said. “So [Joey’s] not allowed to pick movies anymore.”
Regardless of their disagreement in movie taste, the brothers’ relationship has only grown throughout the year. Even though Jack still finds ways to annoy Joey and entertain their teammates while doing so, being together every day has brought them closer – even to the point of finally considering each other friends.
All the way down in Orange Park, the rest of the Musas know how special this season is for both of them, and Jason only hopes he can play his freshman season with Jack who will be a senior.
“Over the years, they’ve gotten so much closer and it’s cute seeing them hang out together,” Alyssa said. “… I never thought I would see the day they’re sitting there getting along.”

On TV, Mary Ann gets to watch both sons at the same time rather than switching back-and-forth between two NCAA games with all the Musas in Orange Park. Some weekends, she and Joe make the trip up to Massachusetts to join Joey and Jack’s cousins, who make the drive from just a few towns over to the Mullins Center.
Regardless of where they watch, Mary Ann and Joe know their sons are in the best environment possible to grow both as players and as men. From the moment they met Carvel, Upton and assistant coach Nolan Gluchowski, they knew UMass was the home for eventually all three boys.
“I guess you can only imagine, I can get teary about it,” Mary Ann said. “It’s so nice as parents … to see them play together … It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
In this final season together, both have grown and impressed Carvel. After a lackluster first half to his sophomore season, Jack shifted gears heading into the final stretch and emphasized that shots on goal weren’t enough to satisfy him. For Joey’s last year in college hockey, stepping up as an older player and proving size doesn’t matter is just the prelude to what he and Carvel hope is a positive ending to his college career.
Regardless of goals, assists and the outcome on the scoreboard, Joey and Jack know not to take this season for granted. It’s rare for brothers to play together once, let alone three times.
“We’re kind of hitting the trifecta here,” Joey said. “ … Not many people in the world can say they played Division I college hockey with their brother and I’m so grateful for that.”
Sydney Ciano can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter/X @SydneyCiano.