With his wife and three children on the ice and 20 other family members and friends in the crowd, Wild winger Matt Cooke was honored Tuesday night before playing in the 1,000th game of his NHL career.
Not bad for coincidentally the 144th pick in both an Ontario Hockey League and National Hockey League draft.
"If you want your dream, work at it," Cooke said. "Just because you're not a high draft pick doesn't mean you're not going to make it."
Cooke, 35, has reinvented his style since a 17-game suspension for elbowing the New York Rangers' Ryan McDonagh in 2011. Once considered a dirty player, Cooke knew he would be out of the NHL if he didn't change his act. He has faced no league discipline since and has turned into one of Wild coach Mike Yeo's trusted checkers after years of productivity in Pittsburgh.
"The last three years have been a lot of fun for me," Cooke said. "With my change in approach has come a lot of realizations and understandings of emotions and events that happen in a game that I never even knew took place because I was putting myself somewhere else to be that [villainous] player.
"So the last three years have made me feel like I have a lot more to give, and that's fun for me, that's exciting. … I can go out and play 18 minutes fairly easily without feeling like I might not make it through the next week. Five years ago, there's no way I can do that with the stress I put on my brain and my body. I enjoy my teammates more, I enjoy the game more. Just everything is in a better place with me."
Among Wild fans, Cooke used to be a detested member of the rival Vancouver Canucks. But fans showed Tuesday how much they have embraced him. Cooke is the 288th NHLer to play 1,000 games and fourth to do it in a Wild sweater, joining Keith Carney, Andrew Brunette and Matt Cullen.
"We all know the history that was there," Cooke said. "And I believed that with the Wild logo that they would appreciate me just as the fans in Vancouver did back then."
