Campbell, Cedar Rapids a perfect fit

CEDAR RAPIDS - Cody Campbell stood on one side of the center circle postgame and Troy Grosenick the other.

In full goaltender's gear, Grosenick threw a pretend baseball toward Campbell, who swung his stick and hit a long imaginary home run. Now that's the way to celebrate a victory.

There actually was more behind it. The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders wore special pinstriped New York Yankees baseball style uniform tops last weekend as part of an ALS awareness promotion.

Hitting a faux homer was to honor head coach Mark Carlson. whose father died from what is commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease.

“Me and Troy don't get to do a Star Trek goal celebration like (teammate Eric) Robinson did a little while back,” said Campbell. “So we talked about it a little bit before the game (Friday) and came up with a pitch-and-catch thing first. We went to dinner (Saturday) night and thought ‘Well, we've got to follow it up with something better.'”

As you can easily tell, Campbell is having a lot of fun as a RoughRider, not to mention a lot of success. The Colorado Springs, Colo., resident was acquired from the Fargo Force midseason, and he and Grosenick have flourished in net with a rotating-starts system.

Campbell, 19, actually got in his first back-to-back starts last weekend, shutting out league-leading Green Bay and giving up one goal to the highly regarded Team USA U-18 team. He was named Monday the USHL's Goaltender of the Week.

“Probably about a month ago, Troy got a couple of starts in a row up in Fargo,” Carlson explained. “We just decided that Cody had a strong game (Friday) night and figured ‘Let's throw him back in there again.'”

“He's poised, you know?”

And very confident right now. In 13 games for Cedar Rapids, Campbell has a 9-1-1 record, two shutouts, a 1.65 goals against average and .941 save percentage.

You can't get much better than those numbers.

“The biggest thing is just staying relaxed and not trying to do too much,” Campbell said. “Just continue to keep working hard, and no matter when you play, whether it's once a month or back-to-back games or whatever, take advantage of your opportunities.

“Because right now I'm competing with my best friend in Troy. That's just the nature of the position and stuff. We support each other. He was probably more excited about me winning (Saturday) than I was. It's nice to have someone always supporting you.”

Campbell has committed to play college hockey at New Hampshire, but the plan has changed from him going to Durham next season to 2011 instead. Grosenick will head to Union College in New York next season, so the number one job will be all Campbell's.

The Riders host Sioux City tonight at The Stable.

“I'm excited to come back here next year,” he said. “It's been a good move. I haven't had this much fun playing hockey forever. It's been awesome. We have a great group of guys, Coach is awesome ... a great motivator. Now we've just got to keep going and keep having fun and hope things keep going our way.”