Jon Cooper explains his special connection with Ron Mason

 

By @MichaelCaples –

EAST LANSING – There were many notable hockey coaches who attended Ron Mason’s funeral service at Munn Ice Arena Thursday afternoon.

Most had either worked with Mason or competed against him.

Jon Cooper had done neither, yet the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning still made sure he was in East Lansing to honor one of his mentors.

Cooper had posted a touching message about Mason on Twitter as the hockey world learned of the legendary head coach’s passing. It came as a bit of a surprise, with Cooper not being a former player or a member of Mason’s impressive coaching tree.

Often asked, who was my 1st coaching mentor…it was Ron Mason. Was fortunate 2 call him a friend. You’ll be missed! pic.twitter.com/fVXsXbQCS8

— Jon Cooper (@CoopersLaw) June 13, 2016

On Thursday, the Lighting bench boss explained his connection to the longtime MSU head coach.

Cooper isn’t from Michigan, but he got his start in coaching with Lansing Catholic Central for the 1999-2000 season while he was building his law practice in the greater Lansing area.

Cooper and assistant coach Pat Murray – a former Michigan State player under Mason – led the Cougars to a 14-10 record, a regional title, and ‘hockey coach of the year’ honors from the Lansing State Journal for the eventual NHL head coach.

All the while, Cooper was leaning on the famous coach of a NCAA powerhouse program down the street.

“Well, half the stuff he probably doesn’t even know,” Cooper said when asked to explain his connection to Mason. “It’s funny – when I got to the NHL is when we finally got to talk about everything, because he would come up to a lot of our games, because he lived so close.”

Cooper watched Mason from afar, and took advantage of any opportunity he could to question the Spartans’ bench boss.

“When I started out in coaching with Pat Murray and we were coaching Lansing Catholic Central, I had to learn from somebody, and there was no better – it wasn’t like there was a plethora of hockey coaches around, except for the best one.

“So I used to come to all his practices, no matter where they were, watch him, talk to him, and it was always, like, behind the scenes, because I was just trying to figure out who the forwards were and who the D were – no, I know a little bit more than that – but he was the one who just introduced me into the whole kind of profession.”

Mason wouldn’t have known what Cooper was building towards, because Cooper didn’t, either.

“I was doing it more for fun at the time, as opposed to moving on to do it for a career, but he was the one that really, I guess helped me get my foot in the door in coaching – how it’s all done. He has no idea – well, he does now – how much he meant to me in my growth as a coach.”

From there, Cooper worked as an assistant coach for Kelly Miller and Jeff Blum with the Capital Centre Pride of the NAHL, then as the head coach of the Metro Jets – where he won a Junior B national title.

After a stint with the Honeybaked midget major team, it was off to head coaching jobs with the Texarkana Bandits and St. Louis Bandits of the NAHL and the Green Bay Gamblers of the USHL. His only coaching stop in Michigan nowadays is when his Tampa Bay Lightning come through Detroit.

But he said he feels a connection to Michigan State, despite never having played for or coached the Spartans. That connection, primarily, is because of Ron Mason.

“…I always felt like, in a weird way that I never went to Michigan State, but I always felt that I was little part of the program, probably because of how he brought me in. And it’s probably no coincidence that I married a girl from Michigan State.”