Rob Burke completed his sixth season as the head coach at Buffalo State in 2011-12. Through six seasons, he has led the Bengals to a record of 41-89-12 overall, including the team’s first ECAC West postseason appearance in five years during the 2007-08 season. In addition, he has mentored four players that earned All-ECAC West honorable mentions, 18 different players that made the ECAC West All-Academic Team, 17 different players honored at the Buffalo State Student-Athlete Academic Luncheon, and 29 different players on the Dean’s List. The 13 returning players on the 2011-12 roster have a combined cumulative GPA of 3.24, and had a semester GPA of 3.41 in the Spring 2011.
A native of Montreal, Burke spent the previous three seasons as an assistant coach at Ivy League Division I Cornell University. While on the Big Red’s staff, he worked two seasons under Melody Davidson who left the program to serve as head coach of the gold medal-winning Canadian national team in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy. In addition to his assistant coaching duties, he also served as the liaison with the Tompkins Girls Hockey Association in running the Cub Club, a program pairing up Cornell players with young girls who are just learning to play hockey.
Prior to Cornell, he spent three seasons as the head coach at Hamline University, a Division III school in St. Paul, Minn. During his tenure, Burke mentored an All-America runner-up goalkeeper, three all-conference selections, one all-rookie team member, and two all-academic honorees while moving the program to varsity status. He brought 24 students to Hamline in only two recruiting years. While developing the foundation for the program on the ice, Burke also emphasized success in the classroom, coaching 11 Dean’s list students and had an overall team grade point average of 3.12.
Burke has worked as an evaluator for the Western Team girls hockey tryouts for the Empire State Games each year since coming to Buffalo State. He has also served as an instructor for the NYSAHA Western Zone Girls Hockey Clinic in 2008, and established a mentorship program between the Bengals and the Buffalo Bisons Girls U12B team during the 2008-09 season.
His additional experience includes two seasons as the head coach, general manager and co-founder of the Virginia Commonwealth University hockey club. Burke’s coaching career began during the 1993-94 season, when he was a volunteer assistant with the Richmond Renegades of the ECHL.
Burke has his Advanced (Level IV) Coaching Certification for USA Hockey, and has also served as an official under USA Hockey. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Fredonia in Theatre Arts in 1992, where he played two seasons of varsity hockey.
Rob and his wife Andrea currently reside in Tonawanda with their daughters Kailyn and Kiley.
