Royals Agree to Terms with Defenseman Matt Campanale

Reading, PA – The Reading Royals of the ECHL, affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the AHL, today announced that the team has agreed to terms with defenseman Matt Campanale. He is the eleventh player announced as signed by the Royals to an ECHL Standard Players Contract for the 2014-15 season, joining forwards Brandon Blandina, Kyle Bodie, Ryan Cruthers, Brock Higgs, Adam Hughesman, Domenic Monardo, Kevin Walrod and Sean Wiles and defensemen Jordan Heywood and Bryant Molle. Consistent with team policy, terms of the SPC were not released.

Video comments of Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Larry Courville on the signing of Campanale can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVBpXR85LSY.

Last year, Campanale (5’11/201) (26),  who hails from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, set personal career highs for goals (7), assists (19) and points (26)—and games played—in a team leading seventy-one regular season games which earned him the team’s Ironman Award. Campanale, who played to a plus-7 (+7) in the regular season, recorded six power play points (1g-5a), and his goals included a game winner (on November 2 against the Elmira Jackals) and a ‘first goal’—the fourth quickest goal into a game for Reading last year (1:26 into the first period against the Jackals on January 11). He also appeared in all five post-season games played by the Royals last year.

Campanale was signed by Reading last summer after splitting the 2012-13 season between Elmira and the Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL. In sixty-eight total games that year, he racked up nineteen points (4g-15a) and eighteen penalty minutes. In playoffs, Campanale scored two goals and assisted on four others for the Wranglers in an epic seven game battle against the Stockton Thunder, who knocked Las Vegas out of the playoffs in the first round. In his first full season of pro, 2011-12, Campanale recorded twenty-two points (6g-16a) in fifty-eight games for Elmira and earned the team’s co-Defenseman of the Year Award. That season, Campanale, who was often paired with former NHL-veteran Craig Rivet, played to a team-best plus-fourteen. In 212 career pro games, Campanale, who is entering his fourth year of pro, has eighteen goals and fifty assists (seventy-eight points) and seventy-two penalty minutes.

Prior to turning pro, Campanale played four seasons at the University of New Hampshire, where he originally walked on as a freshman, proceeded to earn a scholarship, and ultimately was named a team captain in his senior season for the school, which earned an NCAA tournament berth in all four seasons of Campanale’s eligibility. In his senior year with the Wildcats, 2010-11, Campanale played to team-leading plus-25 (+25), and was second on the team with forty-eight blocked shots. In 106 total college games, Campanale recorded twenty-four points (3g-21a) and thirty-two penalty minutes.

Campanale actually began his pro career after the completion of his senior season at the UNH in April of 2011, when he joined the Bridgeport Sound Tigers of the AHL. After playing two games in Bridgeport, Campanale was signed to an Amateur Tryout Agreement by the New York Islanders of the NHL on April 6, 2011, and logged 8:21 of ice-time in his NHL debut, a 3-2 loss for the Islanders to the Boston Bruins at TD Bank Garden in Boston.

The Royals open the 2014-15 season on Saturday, October 18, at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling, West Virginia, where the team will face the Wheeling Nailers. The home portion of the schedule will kick off the following Saturday (October 25, 2014 @ 7:05 pm) when the Elmira Jackals will travel to Santander Arena. Royals’ season tickets are currently available. Call 610-898-7825 for more information or log onto www.royalshockey.com.