Toronto Maple Leafs hire one of the dirtiest players of the modern era to coach their affiliate

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Josh Tupper
October 8, 2023 (9:57)

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Former players often make great coaches and that's exactly what the Toronto Maple Leafs are hoping for. Yesterday the always announced they had hired a controversial former NHLer to be the head coaching of their affiliate in the ECHL. The hire is receiving the exact kind of reaction you'd expect from some fans.

Yesterday the Leafs announced they'd hired former NHL pest, Matt Cooke. Cooke played more than 1000 NHL games from 1998 to 2015. Always known as a pest, Cooke walked the line pretty well his first nine seasons in the league, only being suspended once. Howeer, between January of 2009 and March of 2011, he received four suspensions. Many claim that Cooke is the person that ended the career of Boston's Marc Savard. Now, Cooke has been named head coach of the ECHL's Newfoundland Growlers, an affiliate of the Toronto Marlies and Maple Leafs.

"The Newfoundland Growlers are proud to announce Matt Cooke as the fourth Head Coach in team history & Adam Pardy as a Development Coach ahead of the upcoming 2023-24 season."

There seem to be very few positive reactions to the Growlers' announcement. Here's a sampling.

"Matt Cooke is gutless."

"Coming to the home opener just to boo him."

"At least he can't permanently injure anyone from behind the bench."

"This is such an L, can't believe our team would do this."

"THAT Matt Cooke? That's embarrassing.

Cooke takes over an ECHL team that has had a lot of success over the last two seasons, which led to the vacant coaching positions. The previous head coach, Eric Wellwood, was promoted to assistant coach with the Marlies in the AHL this summer.