CALGARY, Alberta – Hockey Canada has announced that veteran National Hockey League (NHL) head coach Jon Cooper (Prince George, BC/Tampa Bay, NHL) will lead Canada at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
The Tampa Bay Lightning bench boss and longest-tenured active head coach in the NHL will make his return to the Team Canada bench for the first time since 2017, when he led Canada’s National Men’s Team to a silver medal at the 2017 IIHF World Championship.
Cooper was selected by Doug Armstrong (Sarnia, ON/St. Louis, NHL), management group lead for Canada’s National Men’s Team and general manager for the 2026 Olympics, as well as Don Sweeney (St. Stephen, NB/Boston, NHL) and Jim Nill (Hanna, AB/Dallas, NHL), who make up the management group for the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and 2026 Olympics. Player relations advisor Ryan Getzlaf (Regina, SK/Anaheim, NHL) and Scott Salmond (Creston, BC), senior vice-president of high performance and hockey operations, along with Katherine Henderson (Thunder Bay, ON), Hockey Canada’s president and chief executive officer, and Pat McLaughlin (Saint John, NB), chief operating officer and executive vice-president of strategy, also provided input as part of the executive committee preparing for the 2026 Olympics.
“Jon is a world-class person, coach and leader, and his impressive resume and success in the NHL make him the perfect person to lead Team Canada over the next two years at the 4 Nations Face-Off and 2026 Olympic Winter Games,” Armstrong said. “Our management group knows that Jon will represent our country with pride while bringing his winning pedigree to the international stage, and we look forward to working with him as we build teams with the best NHL players in Canada at two marquee events.”
Cooper recently completed his 12th season as head coach of the Lightning, and is the franchise’s all-time leader in regular season games coached (879), regular season wins (480), playoff games coached (139) and playoff wins (84). During his time with the Lightning, he has led the team to 10 playoff appearances, one Presidents’ Trophy (2018-19) and four Stanley Cup Finals (2015, 2020, 2021, 2022), winning back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021. Prior to joining Tampa Bay, he spent two seasons (2010-12) with the Norfolk Admirals of the American Hockey League (AHL), winning the Calder Cup and AHL Coach of the Year Award in 2011-12, and part of one season with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch. Internationally, in addition to his silver medal in 2017, he served as an assistant coach with Team North America at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. He was also announced as head coach of Canada’s Men’s Olympic Team for the 2022 Olympics if NHL players participated.
The first six players for the 4 Nations Face-Off are expected to be announced in late June, while additional announcements regarding Canada’s Men’s Olympic Team will be made at a later date.
The 4 Nations Face-Off is a new international event that will feature NHL players from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States. The seven-game event will take place Feb. 12-20 at the Bell Centre in Montréal, Québec, home of the Montréal Canadiens, and TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, home of the Boston Bruins.
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