Dan Carey has been a lot of things. He’s been a pro athlete. A leading scorer. An NLL champion, and now, a general manager.
It’s been over five years since Dan Carey was appointed to the GM position of the Rochester Knighthawks. Since then, Rochester has built from within through the draft and added when needed from outside via free agency and trades. Carey has built a playoff contender that holds a 6-6 mark two-thirds of the way through this season.
Up next for the ‘Hawks: a matchup with the Colorado Mammoth. For most, it’s the next game of the weekly National Lacrosse League schedule. For Carey, it’s a homecoming.
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK – DECEMBER 23: Rochester Knighthawks v Vancouver Warriors December 23, 2023 in Rochester, New York. (Photo by Micheline Veluvolu)
“It’s pretty special to be honest,” said Carey, who played 60 games for the Mammoth from 2006-11. “This was my team that I got drafted to and spent the majority of my career with. It was a great place to play. I had a great group of guys and lifelong friends that I’ve kind of gained from that experience. I definitely cherished my time in Denver and with the Mammoth. It was a great experience for me.”
Both Carey’s playing and managerial career began with Colorado. After his playing career ended with Toronto in 2012, the Peterborough, Ontario native soon found himself in a front office role with Colorado. He was named director of player personnel, before ascending to the general manager’s chair in 2017. It’s a job Carey had sought after since day one.
“I actually remember my first year here (in Colorado) thinking it was just the coolest job. Steve Govett was the general manager at the time, and I felt like we hit it off right away. I have so much respect for him and how he operated the team. What he was able to do and do that for a living, I think I even said it to him one time like, ‘Well, I want to do your job one day.’”
Carey got his chance when he was named team GM in 2017 after Govett, a mentor of his, left following an iconic decade-plus career in Denver. The then-36-year-old led the Mammoth to an 11-7 finish and a playoff berth. The success was admirable for the rookie GM, but life away from the arena was not as easy. Carey transitioned his wife and at the time their near one-year-old daughter to the west coast. Carey grew up in Ontario. His wife calls Buffalo home. The trio was far removed from any family nearby.
“We had really close friends and people that we were missing and not being able to see as much.”
Then, a phone call came. The Knighthawks were under the new regime of Pegula Sports and Entertainment, and with it came the need for a new general manager.
“I thought about it and, you know, kind of looking at my family and being closer to where our families were with my wife by Buffalo. Our families are in Ontario, so the personal side of things, it definitely made sense knowing that it would make things a little easier on us. But you also started looking at the professional side of it and knowing that it was something that you start from scratch with an expansion team and knowing that that’s a pretty big challenge. It just started to become more appealing.”
Carey appreciated the challenge of starting from the ground up. He inherited a team in Colorado, but he built a team in Rochester.
“He is the visionary that sets the tone for this organization,” said Knighthawks head coach Mike Hasen, who Carey quickly brought into the fold from the previous era of Rochester Knighthawks lacrosse. “He is a guy who communicates so well so everyone is aware of what the expectations are. He set a high standard for us right from the get-go that we’re trying to live up to.”
“I wanted to do this for a long time,” said Carey. “To get a chance to prove yourself with an expansion team meant a lot to me.”
Fast forward to the present and Carey has been a general manager in the NLL for seven years. The player who scored over 100 goals is now the man in his early 40’s trying to do what he did in year one with the Mammoth as a player, and that’s win a championship. Though Carey doesn’t think he’s changed much as a person, he does believe he’s evolved as a general manager, culminating in him being selected as the NLL’s General Manager of the Year following Rochester’s transformative season in 2022-23.
“I think the way I approach things has changed. I still don’t always know how you’re perceived by everybody, but I think I’m probably a little less serious and intense in ways than I was in the beginning. I was never really one to worry about people’s opinions outside the organization. You want people within an organization to follow you and respect you because we’re all collaborating to work towards a common goal.”
“His goal at the end of the day is the Rochester Knighthawks,” said Hasen. “He brings in good people and good players with the best ability on the floor so that we can bring a championship back to this city. That’s his goal, and I hope that anybody in this organization who talks to him knows that his care is them and the organization first and foremost.”
The intended destination is making the Rochester Knighthawks NLL champions, but the journey is just as important. Carey has been a GM since 2017 and a part of the NLL since being drafted by Colorado in the first round of the 2005 draft.
Now, the ‘Hawks and Carey venture west to visit that same Mammoth team Carey wore the jersey of for the first time nearly two decades ago. It’s a full-circle moment in many ways for someone who just wanted to be a part of the game he loves for as long as he can.
