TAMPA, Fla. — With one snap of some really large scissors, the Coop’s Catch for Kids Family Lounge officially opened on Wednesday.
The room at the Muma Children’s Hospital at Tampa General Hospital has been years in the making.
And thanks to Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper’s charity, it’s now a reality. And he is already planning to make an addition to the room, like adding a hockey net.
“Make sure the glass is unbreakable,” Cooper said, “and we’ll have a good little hockey game in there.”
Cooper’s annual fishing tournament, which helps raise money for and awareness of pediatric cancer, helped make the lounge possible.
The entire Lightning organization takes a day during the season to fish with the youth. Several of the participants who have fished with the coach in the past were on hand for the ceremony.
“Just having these family lounges where you can kind of get together outside of a hospital room is just really something special and something that can really be used for a lot of kids,” five-time cancer survivor Weston Hermann said.
The room is meant to be an escape for the kids who are battling cancer — and their families. It’s in honor of those who have lost the battle along the way.
Cooper said he thinks about them often, and they motivate him on and off the ice.
“The fight is real,” Cooper said. “And the fight is happening in the hallways. It’s happening in the room. It’s happening everywhere. To have a place to reset, recharge, just honestly, to get away from, even if it’s a couple of rooms away.”