Twenty-seven years later, Matt Cooke is reunited with the Maple Leafs organization.
The Newfoundland Growlers unveiled the 45-year-old as their newest head coach last Saturday. And while it came as a surprise to many, with Cooke's history as a player being an open book, he believes his style of coaching is unlike how he was in the NHL.
"I coach very differently than I play," Cooke said as he addressed the media in Newfoundland.
"That's because the demands of the game today are different than they were when I played. You look back in 1998, if you were under six foot, you didn't play in the NHL. And so, to be able to adapt and adjust was something I did continuously throughout my career and it's also something I'll do as a coach as well."
When Cooke retired from hockey in 2015, he remained in Minnesota, the city where he played the final two years of his career. Right away, Cooke turned to coaching a high school hockey team and even had an off-ice training business that he says "became very successful in and around the Minneapolis area."
The 45-year-old said he knew his path was coaching, though he also wanted to save some time with his children as they grew older. Then, about two years ago, he and his wife, Michelle, knew it was time to take a hard run at coaching.
"I've dived into the development of athletes and learned a lot through research and teachings," Cooke told the media. "(I) really feel like (I) was positioning myself to get back in (to coaching)."
And then, when AHL Toronto had a few open coaching spots, Cooke reached out to Marlies GM Ryan Hardy which eventually led to him landing in Newfoundland.
"Matt had reached out to me previously when we had the opening with the Marlies, so I passed his name along to the guys in Newfoundland," said Hardy. "And then, as part of that process, he and I spent some time together and he came in here (Toronto) for a few days."
Cooke spent the past few days with the Marlies, watching a practice on Wednesday, and then getting on the ice with them on Thursday. But now, as the regular season nears, he and the Growlers are headed back to Newfoundland to prepare for the year ahead.
"I think we all have some sort of preconceived notions based on how he was as a player, of what he might be as a coach," Hardy said, "and I found him to be a really intelligent guy that had a great passion for teaching and (he) was able to reflect on his experience as a player and certainly, it was a different time, a different game then in some of those instances.
"And so we were all comfortable that what he's going to do with the players from a coaching standpoint and the passion that he'd have for that, based on the experience he has of over 1,000 games and winning the Stanley Cup.
"And he would be the first to tell you that he's probably a much different style of a coach than he was as a player. So, he's a good guy. I'm excited to work with him in the partnership that we've got in Newfoundland and hopefully we'll have a good season there as we have for the last handful of years."
Many know the type of player Cooke once was, but most don't know of his hidden connection to the Maple Leafs organization.
"I do have a connection to the Toronto Maple Leafs," the 45-year-old told the media as he grinned. "But it's kind of a hidden story that nobody knows about."
Believe it or not, Cooke had a tryout with the Maple Leafs in 1996 after going undrafted that year. He impressed the organization so much during training camp that he earned an NHL deal from it.
He was then forced to go back into the NHL Draft the following year and was selected in the sixth round (144th overall) by the Vancouver Canucks.
Although that opportunity early in Cooke's career was lost, he now has the chance to rewrite his story as a coach. The head coach of the Newfoundland Growlers.
"My goal here is to win in three ways, truly. And that is, to win in the community, to win in development, and to win in games."
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