New episode of 32 Thoughts out (a few days ago) with an interview of Jon Cooper by Elliotte Friedman. Sounds like Elliotte visited Coop at his home in Tampa.

They talked about a number of things and I enjoyed the whole thing, but here are some of my favourite excerpts (transcript by me and lightly edited for readability).

On what he would do if he were NHL Commissioner for 48 hours:

JC: You know what I would do? Two things I’d do. I would flip, I would have the first and third be the long change, and I would not have the blue line as a two headed monster entering it. I’d have the blue line, it’s just one entry point. And so I think you’d get rid of a whole lot of, you know what I mean, because when the puck comes out, it comes out at a different point than what it comes in.

On Kucherov:

EF: I want a Kucherov story. Because he’s the most mysterious great player in the National Hockey League. I’d love a good Kucherov story. 

JC: Oh my god, Kucherov is, I mean I’m so fortunate to be able to coach some of the best players in the world. And Kuch, like, I don’t know if I’ll ever coach anybody better than him, anybody that sees it more than him. And, like, I have so many great stories about Kuch, I have so many funny stories about Kuch. I don’t want to put Kuch in any uncomfortable situation. But you think about, just even recently what happened. He’s getting, like, what I love about Kuch, is he is totally okay being the villain. And

EF: I can see it

JC: He embraces it. And I think he thrives in it, and you know, just, even the other night, he scored on, where were we

EF: Chicago

JC: In Chicago. He’s getting booed as he comes in and all of the sudden I’m just like, oh, he’s going to score now. And he did. And he puts the finger up. And it’s just like, how do you think of that stuff. But that’s Kuch. Kuch thinks of things way ahead of everybody else. He knows. And so it’s, he is, he’s just brilliant. He’s poetry on ice. I don’t have enough words to describe how great he is. And how great a competitor he is. And he’s a lot of fun to coach.

On 32 thoughts being the "8th to 10th hockey podcast" Coop sometimes listens to:

JC: Hold on. Before we go, 

EF: yeah?

JC: So, I listen to podcasts every once in awhile.

EF: okay…

JC: Okay. And what I do, like, there’s so many, I kinda go through the notes 

EF: yeah…

JC: And so you’re like the 8th to 10th podcast I’ll look at for hockey

EF: I appreciate that, thank you [laughs]

JC: So anyway, on the last pod, I’m like, you know, so I’ll go through the notes to be like, okay, is there anything interesting here I’d like to listen to, you know a point of view or something like that. And I went through this pod called 32 Thoughts, and I looked down the list and I just was like, god if I could ever get in contact with anybody and tell them: Seth Jones is an American and not a Canadian.

EF: Did we put Team Canada? Oh man… I will take responsibility for that

JC: [big sigh]

EF: You know what? That’s so you, that you would end the interview with a dagger. I really respect it. I just want you to know, I respect it. 

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