How Jon Cooper Went From Public Defender To Stanley Cup Winning Head Coach

If you would have told Jon Cooper twenty years ago that he would be a Stanley Cup winning head coach in the NHL, he probably would have laughed in your face.

Cooper’s meteoric rise to becoming one of the top coaches in the NHL was anything but conventional. In fact, it’s probably too crazy to even make up.

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Out of school, Cooper was working on Wall Street and had an epiphany…he wanted to be a sports agent. Cooper had a crazy passion for hockey, and his background in business and law would help him make it work as a successful agent.

In the meantime, Cooper was working as a public defender in East Lansing. He would turn into an avid Michigan State hockey fan, and ended up making friends with connections to college hockey. But it wasn’t until a phone call from a judge he worked with in 1999 that he ever considered coaching a hockey team.

“I said, ‘Jon, do you want to coach my son’s high school hockey team at Lansing Catholic?'” retired judge Thomas Brennan recalled to USA Today. “He said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’ And, Jon absolutely flourished because you could tell he really enjoyed doing it.”

Cooper was so good at the job, that he quickly climbed the ladder. First he went to junior hockey, and then minor leagues. Eventually, Cooper got the job to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning’s AHL team in Norfolk in 2010. After impressive everybody in the organization, Cooper got the Lightning head coaching gig in 2013.

“Sometimes I look at it like, ‘Geez, how did you end up a National Hockey League coach after that fork in the road?'” Cooper said. “I never dreamt, thought or set a goal to say I’m going to coach in the NHL. It was just my passion for coaching. I loved it so much and I kept going from team to team and all the sudden, I ended up on the top of the ladder.”

Jon Cooper never dreamed of being an NHL coach, but it definitely appears to be his destiny. Cooper has built an incredible team with the Tampa Bay Lightning over the past seven years, and looks like he has a lot more winning in his future.

The reigning Stanley Cup champions are currently up 1-0 in their star-studded series against the Florida Panthers, and seem to have a solid shot at repeating as champs.

While Jon Cooper might have never dreamt of being in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he’ll surely be enjoying the ride.

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