Just before ECHL training camps opened this week, the Newfoundland Growlers named the long-awaited new head coach for the team. Matt Cooke, who appeared in more than 1,000 NHL games as a player and won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, will be the team's fourth head coach in franchise history, earning his first pro coaching job in the process.

Cooke had previously been behind the bench in the Minnesota high school ranks, spending time at both Orono and Chaska High Schools.

While Cooke is relatively new to the coaching profession, he is no stranger to the game and certainly no stranger to NHL fans. Over Cooke's career, that spanned 16 seasons including stints with the Vancouver Canucks, Washington Capitals, Pittsburgh Penguins and Minnesota Wild, the abrasive forward amassed 1,135 penalty minutes. From 2000 to 2015, over which the bulk of his professional career was planned, he was among the top 20 among all NHL players in the league in that category.

The Newfoundland Growlers are proud to announce Matt Cooke as the fourth Head Coach in team history & Adam Pardy as a Development Coach ahead of the upcoming 2023-24 season

🎟️: https://t.co/9akvp20BlN

— Newfoundland Growlers (@NLGrowlers) October 7, 2023

Cooke gained some level of infamy as a player due to multiple injurious hits and suspendible plays, and was once the subject of an independent investigation launched by the late Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk for what was deemed by the league as an accidental collision with then Sens defenseman Erik Karlsson that left Karlsson with a severed Achilles tendon. 

Though Cooke was often the focus of negative attention from opposing teams and sometimes the NHL's Department of Player Safety, he was never really an enforcer despite the high volume of penalty minutes. Cooke was more often than not considered a pest, and a pretty good one at that. 

Cooke was suspended multiple times, but it may have been the hit he wasn't suspended for that was most impactful.

In March of 2010, Cooke delivered a blindside hit to Boston Bruins forward Marc Savard, who was concussed on the play. Savard missed the next two months of the season and was limited the following season before ultimately retiring with ongoing concussion issues. While Cooke was not suspended, the NHL implemented the now famous "Rule 48" that changed how hits like the one Cooke delivered on Savard were reviewed and punished.

Following the longest suspension of his career in 2011, Cooke vowed to change his game and to his credit, he largely kept his nose clean. The season after that long suspension, Cooke had the lowest penalty minutes of his career. There was, however, one more suspension that saw him banned seven games for a knee-on-knee hit during the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Despite the negative attention he often got, Cooke had an especially long career for a player that played on the edge and was as physical as he was. He won a Stanley Cup with the Penguins in 2009 and a World Championship gold medal with Team Canada in 2004. The career he had will offer insight for players that are currently in the early stages of their professional journey.

The Toronto Maple Leafs, Newfoundland's NHL affiliate, has often been particularly liberal with the use of their ECHL roster, sending numerous players on current NHL contracts to St. John's to help a player get their pro legs under them. 

Additionally, the Growlers have routinely been among the top teams in the ECHL. Newfoundland has played four seasons to date and has finished no lower than second place in the North Division. The club won its first Kelly Cup in its inaugural season in 2018-19 and has reached the Eastern Conference Finals every year they've played including last season.

Having a coach with NHL playing experience and what is certain to be an extremely competitive roster as it often is in St. John's, the Growlers have plenty of reason to be optimistic heading into the 2023-24 season which opens for them on Oct. 20 at home against the Reading Royals.