Brodie Merrill didn’t have to come to San Diego. In fact, a year ago, he didn’t have a clue that he’d ever be considering it.

At 37 years old and entering the final stages of his professional career, Merrill was very happy playing for the Toronto Rock of the National Lacrosse League.

He loved his coaches and teammates and had a full-time job as director of lacrosse at The Hill Academy, a school founded by his family in the suburbs of Toronto.

With his wife and three young children at home, life was very, very good for Merrill.


Then Brodie’s brother just had to come calling.

In fact, all Patrick Merrill had to do was walk down the hallway in the offices of The Hill, where he is general manager. Or stroll a few blocks, since the brothers live in the same neighborhood in Oakville, Ontario.

In April 2018, Patrick, 39, was named the first general manager and coach of the expansion San Diego Seals, and with his brother in a free-agency year, it was a no-brainer to ask him to join this new endeavor.

He was asking a lot.


“That was a hard decision for me,” Brodie Merrill said this week as the Seals (1-2) prepared for their first-ever home game at 7 p.m. Saturday at Pechanga Arena San Diego with a matchup against the NLL’s 2018 runner-up, Rochester (1-1).

“As some of my friends have said, it probably wasn’t the most rational decision.”

It was not, considering that instead of driving down the highway for games or practice, Brodie is now, along with Patrick and several other teammates and coaches, making a 4,300-mile round-trip commute on a near-weekly basis from Toronto to San Diego or other parts of North America.

This season, the Merrill brothers will work most of the week at The Hill and fly to wherever the Seals are playing for the weekend. In the season’s first three weeks, there were trips to Denver, Calgary, Alberta, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.


“Quite frankly, it was obvious to me,” Patrick Merrill said of signing Brodie, a former first-round draft pick and multiple winner of the NLL’s Defender of the Year award. “If he chose to sign anywhere else, I would have understood and supported him from afar.

“There was never any guilt involved. At least, I hope he didn’t feel that, anyways. I really appreciate the fact he chose to do this. I think we both looked at it like other things we’ve approached in life. We’re an adventurous family. We’ve never been afraid of opportunity or challenges.”

This is one more chance to be together in lacrosse in a lifetime of parallels for the two men who were born 33 months apart.

The Merrills were avid hockey, soccer and baseball players in their early years of growing up. Then their parents, Peter and Patricia, decided to move out of Quebec in the mid-1990s when there was talk of a secession that never happened.


They landed in Orangeville, Ontario, and when hockey season was over, the boys turned to anticipating soccer season, only to get sideways glances from their classmates.

“In Orangeville, you don’t play soccer; you play lacrosse,” Brodie recalled with a laugh. “I remember us starting off playing soccer and getting the gears from everybody.”

That’s Canadian for being razzed.

Their dad gave them a summer of playing indoor lacrosse, soccer and baseball, but they had to choose one for the following summer.


“We went down to this rink and he bought us some used lacrosse stuff,” Patrick recalled. “We were hooked after that.”

Already polished athletes from going at each other in the backyard for years, the Merrills quickly became some of the best players in their region. They’d played alongside each other on squads that won province titles and once captured a gold medal at an international competition in Prague.

There was a rivalry between them, of course, but more often than not they’d be found sticking up for each other when things got rough. Though Patrick was older, Brodie had a growth spurt that took him to 6-feet-4 — a good four inches taller than his brother.

“I went from being hard on him to worrying that he was going to beat me up,” Patrick said with a laugh. “We’ve been best friends ever since.


“I had a feisty mentality. I’d get in fights and he would finish them. It worked out well. He was a really cerebral, methodical guy, where I wore my heart on my sleeve.”

It was Patrick, though, who always seemed to rise to the leadership roles and captaincies.

“He’s one of those guys,” Brodie said, “who would do anything for his teammates. That’s his protective nature. If you look at what’s left of his legs, there are a lot of scars. He always seemed to have bloody legs because he was always in the mix.”

Patrick, a first-round draft choice by the Toronto Rock in 2002, had an NLL career that spanned 15 seasons. He had to give up the game after suffering a torn ACL early in the 2016 season.


The Rock’s 2015 campaign was special for the brothers. They played together on a team that captured the East Division and reached the NLL championship before losing to Edmonton.

“That experience with him was my favorite year of the playing the game,” Patrick said.

For numerous seasons, the Merrills played on different NLL teams, and that could be difficult at times in a sport that demands one-on-one physicality.

“It was an awkward feeling,” Brodie said. “I think it was most difficult for our parents to watch.”


The brothers say they are needled by their wives for having “twin tendencies.” They communicate with a certain look, with no words necessary. Sometimes, they’ll show up for a family gathering in the same shirt.

“We’re pretty much joined at the hip,” Brodie said.

The transition to San Diego, as well as Brodie playing for Patrick as a coach for the first time, has been what they could have hoped for, the brothers said.

“It’s been cool. It’s been pretty seamless, and in a natural way,” said Brodie, who was named captain of the Seals. “We can be honest with each other. There’s mutual respect there.”


Brodie’s responsibility is to play well and lead the team on the floor. Patrick’s is to give the Seals the best possible chance to win.

“I want a championship for him and San Diego,” Patrick said. “I carry that with me every day. We didn’t have to do this together, but I’m happy that we are.”


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tod.leonard@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @sdutleonard