Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Sports News

Tampa Bay promotes Tocchet to head coach

|
|
 
  
Published: May 11, 2009 at 7:41 PM

TAMPA, Fla., May 11 (UPI) -- Rick Tocchet was promoted Monday to full-time head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the team announced.

Tocchet and Tampa Bay agreed on a multi-year contract. Terms were not disclosed.

Tocchet, 45, was hired as an assistant last off-season. He became interim head coach 16 games into the 2008-09 season when Tampa Bay fired Barry Melrose.

"I am excited for our players and fans that Rick has accepted the position of head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning," said Tampa Bay owner Oren Koules. "Rick has proven to the management and to our players that he is the right man for this job."

Tocchet began his coaching career in 2002-03 as an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche. He spent 1 1/2 seasons with the Avalanche before joining Phoenix as an assistant in 2005.

He was out of coaching for two years for his involvement in a betting ring before re-entering the league with Tampa Bay.

Topics: Barry Melrose
Recommended Stories
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Linsanity The Daytona 500 Cheerleaders of 2012
Additional Sports News Stories
1 of 27
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego wins Finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
View Caption
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego, California watches confetti rain down as she wins the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee championship, May 31, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. Nandipati successfully spelled the word .* guetapens *, meaning to lure or ambush. UPI/Mike Theiler
fark
Two ugly-ass endangered Amur leopards born at Minnesota Zoo, just in time for Caturday
Dick Beals, known as the voice of Gumby and many other animated characters dies at the age of 85,...
If you're upset about damage to your truck, don't arm yourself with a knife and chase a pair of...
A precious snowflake gets wait listed, so her parents do what any parents would: make an $800 "donation"...
Bear eats corpse of convicted killer. I bet that was a *puts on sunglasses* Kodiak moment
Man badly burned by sunscreen