Lightning Coach Jon Cooper Apologizes After Taking Heat for ‘Skirts’ Comment
The Tampa Bay Lightning crashed out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Tuesday, April 30, at the hands of the Florida Panthers after falling 4-1 in their first-round matchup.
Lightning head coach Jon Cooper wasn’t happy with the two disallowed goals that made it impossible for his team to mount a comeback and force Game 6, but his choice of words to voice his frustration had him under heavy fire.
“Are net front battles not allowed anymore?” Jon Cooper pondered in his April 30 press conference. “That’s a part of everybody’s game, the boxing out that goes on there, it’s like prison rules in the playoffs but it’s not prison rules for the goalie?” he continued.
“Like, the second something happens, we might as well put skirts on [the goalies] then if that’s how that’s gonna be. … I think we’re letting the goalies off the hook,” Cooper said.
Cooper’s comments crossed a line with some fans and media members across the NHL and put the coach in a dubious position.
“I wonder what the players on women’s hockey teams think of that comment,” one fan responded.
Put skirts on them? Wow, that’s some kind of misogyny. Coach, you should be better. Gross,” another fan wrote.
Jon Cooper Issues Apology at the Start of Exit Interview
Considering the rise of the Professional Women’s Hockey League in such a short time after being founded in 2023, it’s surprising to find a seasoned coach like Cooper talking about hockey and women in an underlying tone of inferiority directed toward women within the sport.
Cooper, however, realized his mistake and opened his exit interview on Wednesday, May 1 issuing an apology to those who might have felt offended by his initial statement.
