Lightning’s Jon Cooper to miss games vs. Leafs and Hurricanes after death of his father

Jon Cooper won’t be behind the Tampa Bay Lightning bench when the team returns from the Olympic break following the death of his father, Robert, the Lightning announced Wednesday.

Cooper will miss Wednesday’s home game against the Toronto Maple Leafs and Thursday’s visit to Carolina to face the Hurricanes.

No additional details about Robert Cooper’s death were provided.

Jon Cooper returned to North America on Monday after coaching Canada’s silver medal-winning team at the Milan Cortina Olympics. They lost 2-1 to Team USA in overtime in Sunday’s gold-medal game.

The 58-year-old Cooper was raised in Prince George, B.C., in a dual-citizenship household. His mother, Christine, moved to Canada from San Francisco after marrying Robert, a Prince George native who went on to establish a construction company. Christine died in November 2020.

Cooper told NHL.com in 2025 that the sporting rivalry between the countries was a source of good-natured humor in his childhood home. He once gifted his mother a commemorative photo of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team that played audio from its “Miracle on Ice” victory over the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, N.Y.

“Every time you hit a button on it, you’d hear Al Michaels’ voice call out, ‘Do you believe in Miracles? Yes,’” Cooper told NHL.com. “My dad hated me for it. And so I bought it for her for Christmas. And I thought my dad was going to kill me. Because for the rest of time, she would press it any time they had an argument. And it would just drive them nuts.

“So even though it wasn’t against Canada, that’s my U.S. hockey memory that drove my dad nuts.”

Cooper is the NHL’s longest-tenured coach and became the second fastest to reach 600 career victories last month, behind only Scotty Bowman.