Rock adds Majors coach

The head coach of the Timmins Majors of the Great North Midget Hockey League has joined the Timmins Rock of the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League for the balance of this season.

Majors bench boss Brandon Perry has been added to the staff of the Rock as an assistant under head coach Corey Beer.

“We looked at it as a way to improve our team,” Beer said of the addition of the 30-year old Perry, who has coached the Timmins midgets for two full seasons.

The 2018-2019 Great North season recently ended for the Majors midgets with a loss to the Sudbury Nickel Capital Wolves in the third-and-deciding game of the opening round of the playoffs.

When that happened, Beer asked Perry to join the Rock for the rest of this season.

“Same as a free agent signing late with a club, Brandon coming in gives us an upgrade on our bench,” Beer added. “With James Daschuk working with our defensemen and Marc Bisson working with our forwards and goalies, it’s something where Perry can come in and work with our center men on refining their face off technique as well as helping with specialty teams.

“Brandon is a very sharp hockey mind who gives me three tremendous assistants, which is something you can never have enough of,” Beer said of Perry, who in his playing days as a center, skated for the Kingston Voyageurs of the Ontario Jr. Hockey League and the Queen’s Golden Gaels of Ontario University Athletics.

Beer told Hockey News North that Perry, who was with the Rock on a recent road trip, has already fit in with the NOJHL team.

“He has acclimated himself well to the players, having coached some of them with the Majors,” Beer pointed out. “And also having a great personality makes Brandon very approachable for our guys. Were very excited to add him in here down the stretch and into what we are hoping is a lengthy playoff.”

With two games to go in the regular season, the Rock is in third place in the NOJHL’s East Division with 67 points. Timmins is just four points back of the first-place Hearst Lumberjacks and one point behind second-seeded Kirkland Lake Gold Miners in what is a torrid NOJHL East.

Meanwhile, while saying he is enjoying a “great opportunity and experience” with the NOJHL Rock, Perry said it is his intention to return to the Majors and the Great North for a third season in 2019-2020.