Cole Koepke’s Madison Square Garden moment years in the making
NEW YORK — Cole Koepke’s first visit to Madison Square Garden came when he was 10 years old, when his family attended a Rangers-Senators game while on a trip to New York.
He was in awe of the players, struck by the spectacle of the Garden. And on Tuesday night, the kid from Hermantown, Minnesota, was front and center on one of the world’s biggest sports stages.
The 24-year-old emerged from the tunnel, through his Lightning teammates and took the ice for his rookie lap, skating alone before the full team joined him for pregame warmups, a traditional induction to the NHL for players about to make their debuts.
The lights at the Garden came on, and as he made his first turn around the boards, his family was right there. His dad, Jim, pointed his phone’s camera at his son to capture the moment for posterity. Koepke’s girlfriend, Abby, and sister-in-law Allison, let out squeals that overcame the smattering of boos from Rangers fans.
As Koepke sped by, he gave his family a wink.
“He came here 14 years ago, and he came to this arena and we watched the game and both my boys were just ecstatic,” said Koepke’s mother, Julie. “That’s what they wanted to do. And now we’re here; he’s doing it. I sent him a text before the game and told him, ‘Take it in, Cole. It doesn’t get better than this. You deserve it.’ I’m over the moon happy.”
Koepke’s welcoming party was six family members deep, and also included his brother, Travis, and stepmother, Sheila Hawk. They took a three-hour flight from Minneapolis, which is two hours away from Koepke’s hometown.
A former sixth-round pick, Koepke is the latest example of how well the Lightning develop late-round picks. He’s had some growing pains, starting off slowly in his first full pro season in Syracuse, but ended the season with 20 goals and 19 assists in 69 games. Even in the preseason, it took time to get his footing.
Koepke had an inside edge to an opening night spot, especially with Anthony Cirelli out for the first two months of the season. He worked mainly with the third line, and last weekend, Cole called his father and told him he survived the final cuts.
“He was pretty excited,” Jim Koepke said. “He kind of felt like he was there, just the situations they were putting him in, but he also understood he had to work at it. He didn’t feel he was playing his best games in preseason, but he stuck with it. He knows he needs to earn a spot every night. He knows that the salary cap is going to be up and down and Cirelli is coming back. So it’s a short window to prove yourself and establish where you sit short term/long term, but he’s very excited.”
The morning before his debut, Lightning coach Jon Cooper, and teammates Andrei Vasilevskiy and Haydn Fleury shared their memories of their first games, and they echoed that everything goes fast. “He’s not going to remember an ounce of what happened,” Cooper said. “The game becomes a blur in your first NHL game.”
Koepke had a quiet night playing on the Lightning’s third line, logging just 7:51 of ice time, his minutes affected by the fact that there were more than 16 minutes of special teams time in the game. All of Koepke’s action came in 5-on-5. Following the game, after the Garden cleared out, he spent some time with his family in the stands before rejoining the team.
“Now I know how hard it is to get to this point, but I’m also not going to be complacent,” Koepke said before his debut. “I know that it’s one thing to make it here but it’s even harder to stay here and stick here. This is a great team, a great organization and it’s got high standards and if you want to play in this organization, you have to show up every day and work and try and meet those standards.”
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