It initially looked like it was going to be a very short Stanley Cup final this year. The Florida Panthers had won the first three games in the series against the Edmonton Oilers. They were just one victory away from earning hockey’s most coveted prize. And then the Oilers stormed back to win the next three games, forcing a seventh match and an outcome that was teetering on becoming a massive upset.
Jamie Kompon, BEd’89, is an assistant coach with the Panthers. “The fourth [victory] is the hardest to win” in a playoff series, he explains. “[The other] team will go off script and take chances.”
Kompon believes it wasn’t just the all-out attitude of the Oilers that got to his players in that fourth game. Seeing their families in the stands, expecting a big win, put added pressure on the Panthers.
“There were 150 family members that flew to Edmonton from Florida that morning to be at the game, thinking they would be celebrating. You’re about to play the game of your life in 12 hours, and you’re making sure that [your family is] on the bus, that they have a safe flight, and that they’ll see you at centre ice after the game.” Kompon says those thoughts can get in the way of playing good hockey.
While he now refers to the Panthers’ three losses in a row as “the worst collapse in the universe,” he and the other coaches never lost faith nor focus. Turning things around came down to good analysis and inspiring pre-game talk.
“We showed them video, what to expect, and how we have to play. We reminded them who we are,” says Kompon, adding that it was head coach Paul Maurice’s words that really drove things home. “Paul is such an unbelievable speaker. The way he articulates things and get his message across.” And that paid off. The players went into Game 7 simply seeing those losses as a hiccup.
As an assistant coach, part of Kompon’s job involves helping Maurice guide the team’s players. Part of the job also involves looking out for Maurice.
“As an assistant coach, I take the pressure off the head coach. My job is to make his job easy,” says Kompon, who joined the Panthers coaching staff in the 2022-23 season. The team had just hired Maurice, who then added Kompon to his staff. The two had previously worked together with the Winnipeg Jets.
“I look back on McGill and the coaches that I had. They helped me become the person I am.”
Jamie Kompon, assistant coach of the Florida Panthers
Kompon is known for his skill with video – he has a knack for freeze-framing subtle moments in a hockey game and using them to help players fine-tune the way they approach the game. He’ll sit down with a forward and offer encouraging words about their improved ability to win a faceoff or point out to a defenseman how a key pass failed to materialize because he hadn’t spotted an opposing player hidden behind the referee.
Kompon enjoys coaching a team with such camaraderie. “We go on the road and there aren’t six guys going out for dinner, there are 22. They celebrate everything. If a guy blocks a shot, it’s high-fives and everybody’s up on the bench.”
While extra attention for star players can sometimes result in diva-like behaviour, he says that’s not the case with Florida and gives the example of team captain Aleksander Barkov. “He’s up on the bench jumping around like everyone else.”
A whole lot of jumping took place when the final buzzer sounded to end that seventh game, as Kompon joined his players and fellow coaches in hoisting the Cup and celebrating.
With that victory, Kompon became only the second coach in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup with three different teams (he also won with the Los Angeles Kings in 2012 and the Chicago Blackhawks in 2013). The only other person to do that was legendary former Habs coach Scotty Bowman.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be around great people and great players,” says Kompon. “And that’s the only reason why I’ve got this distinction.”
He does see common threads in the three Cup winners he has been a part of. “They all understood what it takes to build the culture of a team and the pieces that you need to put you over the edge.”
Kompon, one of 18 former McGill hockey players to win the Stanley Cup, sees his days with the McGill team as foundational.
“I look back on McGill and the coaches that I had. They helped me become the person I am,” he says, adding that he never turns down a request to speak to a McGill hockey player. He credits his teaching placements during his education degree for giving him the confidence to coach, as he had to teach students just a few years younger than he was.
After graduation, he played minor-league hockey in Europe and the U.S., was an assistant coach for McGill, and spent five years teaching and coaching at Loyola High School. When his own dreams of becoming a professional hockey player began to fade, he decided to apply his skills to running hockey clinics in the U.S. It was there that his talents for video and working with players got noticed by the Anaheim Ducks’ farm team, which eventually led to work in the NHL.
Every member of a Stanley Cup team can choose a city where the Cup will be displayed for a day. Kompon picked his hometown of Thunder Bay (He lives in California in the off-season).
The trophy will arrive on September 11 in the northern Ontario city, where he and his wife Tina plan to spend time with family and friends – and the Cup. This happens to be the year the couple will celebrate 25 years of marriage, their silver anniversary. “I can tell her, ‘I didn’t get you anything. But there is this big silver 35-pound piece.’”
