Few NHL execs, if any, boast the aura of Steve Yzerman. He was a boyhood hero for a lot of current players in the league, and even a few coaches. Two-time defending Cup champion Jon Cooper probably wouldn't be head coach of the Lightning right now were it not for his inability to say no to Yzerman over a decade ago.
It was the summer of 2010. Cooper was a rising coach for the Green Bay Gamblers of the USHL; Yzerman had just been named GM of the Lightning. His then-assistant GM Julien BriseBois was searching for a coach for Tampa's AHL affiliate, at the time the Norfolk Admirals. An agent BriseBois knew well recommended Cooper in mid-August.
As Cooper recalled last week on the Spittin' Chiclets podcast, the agent told BriseBois, "'You should go check out this guy in Green Bay, just give him an interview.' And I don’t think Julien knew. Like, 'Green Bay? What league?' So he called and I wasn’t going to go. I wasn’t going to take the interview because I was happy where I was. I’m like, I’m not moving.
"But he said to me, 'Don’t go burn a bridge. Worst case scenario you get to meet Steve Yzerman.' I was like, you know what, damn rights, I get to go meet Steve Yzerman."
Cooper said the Lightning flew him first-class down to Tampa, where they put him up in a hotel room "bigger than any apartment I've ever lived in."
"Go downstairs to meet Steve and there I am, sitting outside his office, knees bumping a bit and I see his name, like, I’m gonna meet Steve Yzerman -- I have his rookie card at home," Cooper said.
And while Cooper figured Yzerman would be stern and intimidating, he said the Hall of Famer "was the nicest human being."
"It was like my oh-sh*t moment," said Cooper. "I’m like, Holy sh*t, I’m meeting Steve Yzerman. And he’ll kill me for saying this, but I was a little bit taller than him, so I felt good about that height wise. But he was way taller than me in aura size."
Cooper said the interview lasted three hours and "didn't feel like a minute."
"I just kind of had a vibe," he said. "When I flew home after, my wife asked how it went and I said, 'Well, I probably won’t get the job because they don’t know who the hell I am, but I know I made it tough on them.' And the next day, phone rings and they offered me the job."
Cooper would coach Tampa's AHL affiliate for the next three seasons, before Yzerman named him head coach of the Lightning in March of 2013. He's since won more games than any coach in the league.
And who knows -- maybe one day he'll be winning games with Yzerman again in Detroit.