A beloved hockey voice is lost, but the love affair with a game continues

TAMPA Funny, the kid in the basement never had to answer questions about a loss.

Each playoff series somehow played out exactly as he envisioned. He unlocked his mother's dryer door and fired pucks into the opening until he reached the desired score. The white machine eventually turned black from all the scuffs from errant shots, but Boston (his favorite team) and Toronto (his father's choice) usually made it to the Stanley Cup Final in the boys' version of a hockey postseason.

And gradually this became non-negotiable. The voice of Hockey Night in Canada's Bob Cole played in the youngsters' heads every time a puck got past the imaginary goaltender and rattled against the back wall of the dryer.

I mapped out each series and named the games in my head. Only it wasn't in my head. “I would say it out loud,” he said. And when you grew up in Canada and imagined a Game 7, you always called the game what Bob Cole would call it.

This is how Jon Cooper fell in love with hockey.

It's late Thursday night and the Lightning have just lost their third straight game to Florida in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Cooper dutifully answers questions during a post-game press conference before going off script.

I was hoping this would be a little better situation since we just lost a game in the playoffs, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention Bob Cole's passing, Cooper said. I know it has nothing to do with this game, but it does.

Because I probably wouldn't be coaching in this league if I didn't grow up having a passion for this game because of that man's voice.

Cole, 90, died Wednesday. He was the voice who serenaded a nation every Saturday night for nearly half a century as announcer of the immensely popular program Hockey Night in Canada. Picture him as Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football, except Cole's reign lasted three times as long.

Cooper's unsolicited eulogy was compelling, not only because of its heartfelt delivery, but also because we tend to imagine Cooper coming to hockey later in life. He played lacrosse at Hofstra University in New York and became a lawyer in Michigan before coaching high school hockey.

But his eventual path was set years earlier as a schoolboy in Prince George, British Columbia, about 500 miles north of Vancouver. While his younger brother enjoyed skiing, Cooper described himself as a hockey nerd.

He collected thousands of hockey cards (he still has them stashed away somewhere) and loved the Bruins because of Bobby Orr. In the days before cable and remote controls, the TV in the house was always tuned to CBC on Saturday evenings, with what was often the only hockey game of the week on television.

The Canucks may have been the closest thing to a local team, but Hockey Night in Canada liked the Maple Leafs and Canadiens.

The way he called games, the way he said a player's name, it was magical. “I can't really express what it meant to me,” Cooper said. If it's the only voice you hear, you associate it with players and teams, and it becomes the voice of hockey for you.

Thirteen years after taking his first coaching job at Lansing Catholic High School in Michigan, Cooper had worked his way through a half-dozen minor league jobs and was hired by the Lightning in 2013 to replace Guy Boucher. handful of future Hall of Famers, but Cooper said he was never really impressed until he met Cole at a pre-broadcast production meeting.

Unlike some coaches, Cooper enjoyed telling Cole what line combinations the Lightning would use that night, and he enjoyed listening to the broadcasters' many stories. When Cole asked Cooper to visit the broadcast booth in the press box hanging from the ceiling of Montreal's Bell Center during a 2018 visit, Cooper didn't hesitate.

I thought, hell, yes! said Cooper.

Once upstairs, Cooper asked Cole if they could both put on headphones for a photo. Because it was so early in the day, no one else was around, so Cooper had to walk around the wobbly gondola before finding a concierge who could take a photo of them.

As happy as he made me feel by taking me there, I truly believe the feeling was mutual because I think he knew his time (as a broadcaster) was coming to an end, Cooper said. I think he was happy to know that there were people who cared for him and cared about the work he had done. And I will never forget that. They were two people with a passion for hockey from different generations, and we enjoyed each other's company.

So when I was driving home from the rink (Thursday morning) and Boomer Gordon said on NHL Network Radio that he had some bad news about Bob Cole's passing, I felt in that moment like I had lost a little part of my life. soul.

In a sense, the story has come full circle. Although televised games are now ubiquitous and no broadcaster is likely to have the kind of effect Cole once had on generations of Canadian children, Cooper has often spoken about watching hockey grow in Tampa Bay during the Lightning's recent run of success.

Like a young Jon Cooper with Bobby Orr almost fifty years ago, there are kids in Tampa Bay and beyond who have fallen in love with the sport thanks to Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy.

We go out and meet kids wearing a Stamkos jersey in Phoenix or a Kucherov jersey in Denver and I'm like, 'Are you a Lightning fan in Phoenix? And they'll say, 'Yeah, I fell in love with hockey when you guys won your Cups,'” Cooper said. Then you realize what impact winning a cup can have. Kids waking up and saying Lightning is my team? That's Jon Cooper falling in love with Boston and Bobby Orr because of Bob Cole.

That's how the love affair begins, and it stays with you forever, and that's what we hoped to do in Tampa.

The idea that Cooper was willing to talk about Cole and their shared love of a game seemed even more authentic and genuine because it came after a loss when the Lightning were on the brink of elimination.

It would have been great to share the moment after a win, Cooper said. But maybe it was a victory after all, because I got to share the moment.

John Romano can be reached at [email protected]. Follow @romano_tbtimes.

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