Friday, February 19, 2016

By Lee Samuels

There is breaking news today. Rob Pallin, a seven-time Vegas Hockey Coach of the Year, has been named the new head coach of the HC TKW Innsbruck hockey team which plays in the Austrian Elite League. The official announcement was made today.

Pallin said he is thrilled, adding “…I am moving ahead in my coaching career and am very excited about this opportunity. I know some of the players on the Innsbruck team who include Hunter Bishop who I coached on Team Pacific back in 1987 and Tyler Spurgeon who is the brother of Jared who plays for the (NHL) Minnesota Wild.”

Pallin, born in Chisholm, Minnesota, was head coach of some of the most famous hockey teams in Las Vegas. He made his debut in AA Midget level hockey in 1999-2000 when he put together the Triple Threat Line of Travis Roseberry, J.C. Caron and Spike Neely with the Las Vegas Mustangs who skated out of the Santa Fe Stations Ice Arena. The following season Rob had the Red Line with Josh Jasek, Adam Naglich and Eddie Samuels on the first Las Vegas midget team team to win a Pacific Region gold medal and play in the U.S. Nationals for the first time.

He also coached the UNLV Rebels for six seasons and the team was West Top 10 ranked for most of those years. From there Rob was a coach with the ECHL Las Vegas Wranglers and following that began to coach in Europe.

The Innsbruck team plays at the 7,212-seat Olympic World Innsbruck complex. Innsbruck is the capital of Austria’s western state of Tryol located in the Alps.

Coach Rob is in Las Vegas now. He plans to join in his new team in late July.