Waterloo hires Troy Grosenick, Terry Jarkowsky for goaltending roles

Waterloo did more than fill two staff slots. By bringing in Troy Grosenick as goaltending coach and naming Terry Jarkowsky its goaltending scout, the Black Hawks built out a goalie-development lane that reaches from recruiting to daily work at Young Arena. Grosenick had already spent time with the organization during recent camps, giving Waterloo its first chance to put him in front of future netminders before the season ever started.

That matters in the USHL, where goalies are often the hardest players to project and the quickest to influence a roster’s ceiling. Grosenick arrives with a resume that should carry real weight in a locker room: two seasons with the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders, four career NHL games with the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings, and a shutout in his NHL debut on Nov. 16, 2014, against Carolina. He also played three seasons at Union College and was a Hobey Baker finalist in 2012. For Waterloo, that is not just pedigree. It is a coach who has lived the exact climb the Black Hawks promise their players.

Jarkowsky brings the kind of institutional memory clubs usually spend years trying to manufacture. He played for Waterloo in 1993-94, when the Black Hawks won 33 games and set a then-record for the junior era. HockeyDB lists him with 30 games played, 1,649 minutes, an 18-9 record, a 2.87 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage. He also became the first junior-era Waterloo goalie to win USHL Goaltender of the Year honors, which gives his new role real credibility with prospects who want proof that the path through Waterloo still leads somewhere.

The timing is not accidental, either. Waterloo had recently parted ways with head coach Scott Gordon on May 12, and the Black Hawks were already in the middle of Young Arena camps when these hires landed. In that setting, goalie-specific staffing looks less like a luxury and more like a competitive necessity. Junior goaltenders need technical cleanup, mental steadiness and repeatable messaging, and clubs that give them all three are starting to separate themselves from the pack.

Waterloo has long sold itself as a proving ground for players who move on to the NCAA, the NHL and even the Olympics. Grosenick and Jarkowsky fit that pitch perfectly, and together they give the Black Hawks something more valuable than a headline: a clearer plan for how the next starter gets built.