Coach Jon Cooper’s charity fishing tournament continues to inspire
TAMPA — Weston Hermann is a center for the Florida Alliance under-18 AAA junior hockey team. His specialty is faceoffs, and he’s gotten tips from some of the best. He’s been a student of the game, studying the way his favorite Lightning players compete and trying to bring little pieces into his two-way game.
Being on the ice is an escape for the 17-year-old Parrish resident. He’s beaten brain cancer four times, first diagnosed when he was just 7. He’s gone through two extremely risky surgeries. And his last battle required 50 consecutive weeks of chemotherapy before he became cancer free in July 2021.
About a month ago, in the middle of his hockey season, he found out the cancer was back. A routine scan found two tumors attached to his right frontal lobe, where they initially developed. Hermann has a third surgery scheduled for April 9. His only request was to finish out his hockey season.
“Hockey pretty much saved me,” he said. “After a chemo treatment, I would go straight from the hospital to a hockey practice or a hockey game, just because that is where I felt most safe. And I felt away from everything that was going on.”
His relationship with the Lightning began with his involvement in Coop’s Catch for Kids — coach Jon Cooper’s annual fishing tournament to benefit pediatric cancer research. All funds from the tournament, which took place Monday morning, go to the V Foundation, founded by broadcaster Dick Vitale to benefit pediatric cancer research and patient services.
Hermann first attended the event six seasons ago when he was 11, and boarded a boat with Nikita Kucherov and Mikhail Sergachev. The weather was bad and the water was choppy, especially on the way back, and Hermann remembers a then-19-year-old Sergachev loving the bumpy ride.
He’s been a part of every Coop’s Catch since, including Monday’s, which included a surprise appearance by Cooper’s friend, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky.
“He’s a hockey player, so he’s been involved a lot more with us,” Cooper said of Hermann. “He’s gone through remission, getting the good news, and then gets whacked again like he has recently. ... These kids, they were little tykes, and now I think Weston might be taller than me.”
Key inspiration
When Cooper first joined the Lightning in 2013, he quickly learned that philanthropy was important in the organization. It started at the top with owner Jeff Vinik, whose community heroes program donates $50,000 every home game to a local charity and is currently in its 13th season.
When he attended the local Sneaker Soiree in 2015, Cooper was impressed by 15-year-old Tony Colton, who took the stage and talked about his experience growing up with cancer. Cooper immediately introduced himself to Colton, and from there, the teen became part of the Lightning family and the inspiration for Cooper to start the fishing tournament.
“I was enamored with how he spoke at such a young age and in front of such an intimidating crowd,” Cooper said. “... When he was on stage, he told everybody that he was in remission and he was good. When in fact, when I went and spoke to him, he said, ‘Actually, I’m not. I have pretty much an incurable disease that will always keep coming back.’
“I thought, ‘Jesus, the selflessness of that kid’ because he told me he didn’t want the crowd to feel bad for him,” Cooper said. “And I was like, ‘Wow, how is is that at your young age, you can have that mental mindset to think of everybody else but yourself in that moment.’ ”
Colton was on the boat with Cooper for the first Coop’s Catch in October 2016. Cooper visited him when he was undergoing chemotherapy. Colton attended games as Cooper’s guest. Players knew him by name, and he befriended Tyler Johnson and Brian Boyle, who had his own battle with cancer.
Colton died in July 2017. Cooper still has a photo of Colton in his office, and the card from his memorial sits on his desk.
“It’s because of the cause,” Cooper said of Coop’s Catch. “We’ve had so many kids come up through this, but we’ve had so many kids that we’ve lost as well. For a lot of the players, it’s their favorite event of the year. They give their time, they give money, they give everything they can to help these kids. So you try and find that balance of making it really mean something but making it fun for everyone.”
This year’s Coop’s Catch made around $200,000 and the event has raised almost $750,000 since 2016.
Part of the family
Two years ago, Hermann took a fall similar to the one that recently sidelined Sergachev. He fractured his fibula and tore three ligaments in his ankle. When he was told he’d be out for six months, Hermann scoffed at the prognosis.
“He just looks at me and says, ‘They don’t know me, I’ll be back in three,’ ” said his father, Jared. “I was like, ‘Let’s just calm down. Let’s get through surgery here before we’re talking about recovery.’ Sure enough, he was back playing three months later. That’s just his mentality of, ‘Hey, I’ve already done this. I know I can do it.’ He just thinks, no matter what it is, he’s going to get through it.”
Hermann has joined the Lightning twice during their pregame skates, getting one-on-one tips from Brayden Point on faceoffs and doing tip drills last year with Tanner Jeannot and former Lightning center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. He’s participated in the team’s Hockey Fights Cancer nights. He’s also received tremendous support from Vitale, who has put Weston on his All-Courageous Team of kids who are cancer survivors.
“Having that extra support from people that I look up to that I would never even think would know my name,” Hermann said, “I think that’s just super, super special.”
Each surgery Hermann undergoes presents more risk, and because one of the tumors is attached to the part of the brain that directs movement to the rest of the body, there is a significant risk of paralysis on his left side.
“We’re at about a 75% probability that there’s a good chance that you’ll never be able to play hockey competitively again,” his father said. “That’s the kind of significant risk we’re facing.”
This week, Hermann’s Florida Alliance team participates in districts in North Carolina. If the team wins, a trip to nationals in Las Vegas will be next. The national championship game would be a week before Hermann’s surgery.
But his resilience shows in the way he’s looking at his fight against cancer. He likens it to hockey.
“We’re in the playoffs now,” he said. “Everything is all playoffs. So I went 4-0 in the first round. That was a Round 1 sweep. And now we’re moving on to the second round. Moving off everything that I know I’ve gone through, I know that there’s nothing that will take me out. I’ve just got to get through it.”
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