For Logan Cooley, Vincent Trocheck was never just another NHL player.

Long before they became teammates with the Utah Mammoth, before summer skates and daily texts about a possible reunion, Trocheck was someone Cooley watched from afar — a Pittsburgh hockey product who made it to the highest level and became the kind of player young kids dreamed about becoming.

Now, years later, the dream has come full circle.

Cooley isn’t watching Trocheck anymore.

He’s playing alongside him.

When Trocheck was acquired by Utah in a trade with the New York Rangers, the move immediately gave the Mammoth another proven veteran presence down the middle. But for Cooley, the deal carried a much more personal meaning.

The two Pittsburgh-area natives already had a connection before Trocheck arrived in Utah. They skated together during the offseason, with Cooley getting the chance to not only learn from a player he admired growing up but also build a friendship with someone who helped inspire his own hockey journey.

Trocheck admitted that Cooley played a major role in making Utah feel like the right destination.

“I talked to a lot of the players,” Trocheck said. “I’m close with Logan Cooley, Pittsburgh guy. Talk to him, talk to (Clayton Keller), talk to a couple guys that I know on the team. They’ve just talked about the organization, the way that Ryan (Smith) treats the players and how awesome it is here.”

But Cooley’s excitement went beyond simply recruiting a veteran teammate.

He was getting the opportunity to finally share an NHL locker room with someone he had admired for years.

“We were talking about it for a couple weeks leading up to it, how it was kind of a possibility that I was going to come here,” Trocheck said. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure how real it was, and he was texting me every day for what felt like two weeks asking me what was going on.”

That excitement came from a relationship that started long before Cooley became one of Utah’s young stars.

Trocheck watched Cooley develop from a talented kid in Pittsburgh into a future NHL cornerstone. Cooley, meanwhile, grew up watching Trocheck carve out a successful NHL career as a hard-working, competitive center who played with the kind of edge that made him easy to admire.

“He was skating with us when he was 12,” Trocheck said. “I got to watch him kind of grow up from a young age and watch him grow into a spectacular hockey player.”

There was even a little humor from Trocheck about those early days.

“He was making me look bad,” he joked. “He still does that now.”

That relationship is part of what made Utah such an appealing landing spot for Trocheck.

According to The Athletic, Cooley was one of the players who helped convince Trocheck that the Mammoth were building something special. The young forward was so excited about the possibility of becoming teammates that he continued checking in throughout the process, eager to know whether the trade would happen.

Trocheck’s decision to embrace Utah was not simply about hockey. It was about the people already inside the organization and the belief that the Mammoth were becoming a destination players wanted to join.

“The best thing that can happen is our other players are telling him how great it is,” Utah owner Ryan Smith said.

Cooley was one of those players.

Now, the relationship has come full circle.

The kid who once watched Trocheck from the stands and followed his career now gets to learn from him every day — on the ice, in the locker room and during Utah’s push to take the next step as a franchise.

For the Mammoth, Trocheck brings playoff experience, leadership and a proven top-six center.

For Cooley, he brings something even more meaningful.

A childhood hero turned teammate.

And maybe one day, years from now, another young player in Pittsburgh will look at Cooley the same way he once looked at Trocheck.