Pat Campbell Named Rock Goaltending Coach

After retiring earlier this summer, former Rock goaltender Pat Campbell has been named goaltending coach for the lacrosse club.  Campbell’s 14-year NLL career saw stops in Columbus, Rochester, Edmonton and Calgary along with beginning and ending his journey with the Toronto Rock franchise.

The Rock had a vacancy on the coaching staff after Steve Dietrich left the team to become the General Manager of the Buffalo Bandits.  Dietrich, much like Campbell, moved into the goalie coach position immediately after retiring from the NLL as a member of the Rock following the 2010 season.

“Pat has always been looked at as a great team guy,” said Rock Assistant Coach and GM Terry Sanderson.  “We know he’s much more than that.  He has been around this league for a long time and has a lot of knowledge to pass along to our young goaltenders in his new role with the club.”

Campbell was a backup goaltender for the bulk of his NLL career in which he was a part of four NLL Championships.  Three of those Champion’s Cup wins were with Toronto and one came with the Calgary Roughnecks.

“I feel like I’ve been a bit of a coach for most of my career,” explained Campbell.  “As the backup goaltender, you’re on the bench constantly breaking down the game and looking for the opposition’s tendencies to feed info to the guy facing shots in the net.  I’m looking forward to working with the young guys we have here in Toronto.”

Currently, the Rock have two goaltenders signed for the coming NLL season.  Nick Rose returns as the Rock starter after being acquired at the trade deadline in March of 2012.  He went 5-1 down the stretch in his first experience as a number one goalie in the NLL.  The second goalie is Zak Boychuk who spent the 2012 season on Toronto’s practice roster and has yet to see NLL game action.  Boychuk will come to camp looking to step into the active roster spot that opened up with the retirement of Campbell.

Campbell will officially go to work when the Rock open up training camp in early December with the 2013 NLL regular season kicking off in January.