Time will tell if Lightning’s Cooper is forgiven
Jon Cooper’s sexist faux pas, uttered amid the frustration of his Lightning being eliminated Monday night by the panthers, served as both a lesson in phrases best not used, as well as one in how to apologize, express sincere regret, and try to move on.
the moving on part, of course, is often a struggle in today’s world, be it in the make-believe land of sports or all the venues of life far more important than the rinks, arenas, fields, and ballparks that occupy our attention.
We’ll find out in the days and weeks ahead if cooper, 56, is granted the grace of forgiveness, or if he ends up the next Mike Milbury, who lost his broadcasting career in the summer of 2020 for a mildly sexist on-air remark that the NhL and NBc cared not to tolerate and used to bury him.
Which is not to say, four years later, that cooper should be similarly shunned and pilloried. rather it is to underscore that Milbury, always more sharp-tongued and controversial than cooper, was unduly booted from the booth, if not outright blackballed for saying something less egregious than cooper.
cooper deserves to stay behind the bench. Milbury should be allowed back on the air, sharing his informed, oftcontroversial opinions, which made his intermission appearances must-watch tV and far more intriguing than the prattle we’ve been subjected too since in the United states market.
the Lightning, knocked out of the round 1 series in five games, proved by far to be the inferior team. the panthers were flat-out better and could be the favorite now to win the stanley cup, although the margins are so thin, game to game, the odds are subject to shift almost between line changes.
cooper had abundant reason to gripe, as he did, following the 6-1 loss that put his team on vacation. specifically, his Lightning had two goals erased following forensic video review that deemed both were the product of forwards interfering with panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.
For what it’s worth, from his comfy spot high on the turnbuckle of the family room couch, your faithful puck chronicler both times immediately hollered, “Good goal!” Wrong, and wrong again.
Now granted, i get most of these “goalie interference” calls wrong, largely because i grew up watching and then covering a 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s NhL that allowed attacking forwards to hack away at goalies like they were padded, oversized pinatas. Battling Billy Smith
(four cup titles, islanders, 1980-83) battled for a reason, namely, survival. the crusty, ornery, smith gave as good as he got, if not more, and that was fine because, to borrow from cooper’s lessinflammatory words the other night, “prison rules” prevailed in the playoffs.
Man, did the jailhouse rock when goalies were the pylons and the plan of every team’s attack was to “send traffic to the net.” rules? there were no rules in that knife fight.
decades later, well, that ain’t the NhL. two referees, rather than one, make the calls. When the guys in stripes aren’t sure, or if the NhL war room isn’t sure, the show is brought to a halt and the forensic sleuthing begins. sometimes, as was the case in Game 5, it’s the opposing coach (Florida’s Paul Maurice) who can request a review.
Both times, the tale of the tape went upside-down for the Lightning. Anthony Duclair was deemed the guilty party on an Anthony Cirelli strike that would have provided a 1-0 lead. then it was cirelli whose actions at Bobrovsky’s doorstep, per review, wiped out what would have been Mikhail Sergachev’s pot for the 2-2 equalizer.
then came the deluge. panthers move on with a 6-1 beatdown. Lightning go home to cry in their two cups (2020 and ’21), each won with the brilliant cooper as bench boss.
even after the loss and the accompanying controversy, for the most part cooper was his regular composed, dignified self, in the postgame presser. he noted his, shall we say, disappointment that the goals were negated in an era when, as he understands it, only a flagrant infraction should take a goal off the board.
“Maybe incidental contact, at most,” offered cooper.
to that point, he also gave Bobrovsky a dig for exaggerating the interference around the crease. “he duped ’em,” said cooper, “and so be it.”
then came the quote that cooper later would say he wished he “could reach back and grab the words back.”
to wit: “We might as well put skirts [on the goalies] then . . . i think we are letting the goalies off the hook.”
Frankly, it’s a very old and tired line, one that dates at least to those 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s when everyone was saying it was oK to hammer the goalies because, well, “you know, they’re not wearing skirts.” We weren’t then what we are today. i told a female colleague the next morning that cooper would apologize that day and do so sincerely, forthrightly, without equivocation. i came close. he did it 24 hours later, labeling it “an inappropriate analogy” during his season wrap-up session with the media.
“Quite frankly, it was wrong,” he said, “and i’ve got to explain myself to my girls. i sincerely apologize to all i offended. it’s pained me more than the actual series loss itself.”
Milbury never had the chance to explain fully, or apologize for, what he said amid the 2020 so-called “bubble” playoffs he was working in toronto. in an on-air conversation with fellow broadcaster John Forslund, Milbury casually noted, in a tone similar to cooper’s Monday night, that NhL players could better concentrate on the game while in the bubble.
“it’s a terrific environment,” said Forslund, noting the camaraderie the bubble fostered. “it’s a perfect place.”
“Not even any women here,” added Milbury, “to disrupt your concentration.”
Goodbye, Mike. hello, unemployment line. With his bosses pressured by the NhL, Milbury packed up his goods within hours and headed back to the Bay state for good. NBc finalized his firing months later, in January 2021.
it was a gross overreaction by the league and NBc. Milbury, now 72, was left blacklisted by it and has worked only marginal, low-profile broadcasting gigs since. After selling their home in the Boston suburbs, Mike and wife Ginger now live year-round on cape cod.
it appears at the moment that cooper will skate, his backside buffeted by the grace and intelligence of forgiveness.
“his apology was sincere,” said Milbury, reached by telephone later in the week. “Was what he said regrettable? sure. But coach on, i say. No further action necessary. No need for an NBc-like apology — like happened to me — from the Lightning. No need for the NhL to put out a statement condemning him, as the league felt necessary in my case.”
By Milbury’s eye, the tone of cooper’s mea culpa made clear he’s punished himself enough already.
“still,” mused Milbury, channeling his old coach’s ethos and tV persona, “i don’t think i’d ever say an ill-advised comment was worse than being eliminated from the playoffs!”