Former Penguins forward Matt Cooke named BCHL head coach

Cooke previously coached the ECHL’s Newfoundland Growlers before the club dissolved in 2024.

Former Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke has been named head coach and general manager of the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers.

The club, which is based in Vernon, British Columbia, announced Cooke’s hiring on Friday with a photo of him wearing his 2009 Stanley Cup ring from his championship with the Penguins.

Cooke will “take over immediately” ahead of the 2025-26 BCHL season, according to the team.

Vipers owner Tom Glen cited Cooke’s “experience as both a player and a coach” in the franchise’s decision to hire him.

Cooke, who was originally drafted by the Vancouver Canucks in 1997, helped the Penguins win the Stanley Cup during his first of five seasons in Pittsburgh.

He has a tie with a current member of the Penguins roster in Erik Karlsson, who had to undergo Achilles surgery after a collision with Cooke during a game between the Penguins and Ottawa Senators in February 2013.

Cooke left to join the Minnesota Wild in free agency after that season, then retired from the NHL after the 2014-15 campaign.

He began pursuing a coaching career shortly after hanging up his skates, beginning as an assistant head coach for Orono High School in Minnesota. The NHL veteran said when first joining Orono that he “always thought I would get into coaching when I got done.”

Cooke was then named head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ ECHL affiliate, the Newfoundland Growlers, ahead of the 2023-24 season.

The club went 28-28-8 through the first 66 games of the season, but the team ceased operations before the conclusion of the campaign.

Vernon, normally a perennial playoff contender in the BCHL, struggled last season with a 15-33-6 record that led to the team missing the playoffs for the first time since 2013. Cooke will now be tasked with helping the franchise return to postseason contention.