His rise as a coach has been meteoric. Now, Prince George's Jon Cooper is four wins away from the most prized trophy in hockey.
Cooper is head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who open the Stanley Cup final on Wednesday night at home against the Chicago Blackhawks. The 47-year-old bench boss was born in Prince George and attended Spruceland elementary school and Lakewood junior secondary. Cooper also played minor hockey here and, at age 15, left for Wilcox, Sask., to attend school and play at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame.
His parents, who still live in Prince George, are Bob and Christine Cooper. The family business - RJ Cooper Construction - is well-known in this area.
Cooper's time at Notre Dame led to a scholarship at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. There, he played club hockey and field lacrosse and earned a degree in business administration. He then applied for a coaching job with the Williams Lake Mustangs but the position went to another candidate. Cooper went back to the States instead, where he worked briefly on Wall Street and then headed for Lansing, Mich., and Thomas M. Cooley Law School. After he got his degree, Cooper worked for five years as a public defender but he never lost the bug for hockey. During that time, he coached a string of teams at the minor, high school and junior levels and finally stepped away from his career as a lawyer in 2003 to take a job as head coach and general manager of the junior A Texarkana Bandits of the North American Hockey League.
Cooper remained with the Bandits (who relocated to St. Louis) until the end of the 2007-08 season and led them to a pair of championships in his final two seasons. From there, he went to the Green Bay Gamblers of the United States Hockey League and guided them to a title in 2009-10.
Next, it was on to the professional ranks with the Norfolk Admirals, who were the American Hockey League affiliate of the Lightning. Cooper's second season with the Admirals, 2011-12, ended with a Calder Cup championship. The Admirals became the Syracuse Crunch for the 2012-13 AHL season and Cooper had them on another successful run when he was promoted by the Lightning in March of 2013 as a replacement for the fired Guy Boucher.
At the time of Cooper's hiring, Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman had every confidence in Cooper's abilities to succeed in the NHL.
"He has had success at every level he has coached and is extremely familiar with our organization, as well as our players," Yzerman said. "He has a tremendous record at all levels and we feel he is ready to make the move to the NHL."
In his first full season with the Lightning, 2013-14, Cooper put his stamp on the club and steered it to a 46-27-0-9 record - an especially impressive mark considering star forward Steven Stamkos missed much of the year with a broken leg. Tampa Bay was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Montreal Canadiens but the Lightning's fine season resulted in Cooper being nominated for the Jack Adams Award as NHL coach of the year. The honour went to Patrick Roy of the Colorado Avalanche.
This season, the Lightning skated to a 50-24-0-8 record and knocked off the Detroit Red Wings, the Canadiens and the New York Rangers in the first three rounds of the playoffs.
