John MacNeil
Daily Herald
The grind of training camp is like a good day’s work on Max Cooper’s grain farm in Porcupine Plain, Sask.
Cooper, who led the U18 AAA Prince Albert Mintos in scoring last season as a rookie, is used to the heavy lifting on the ice and on the farm.
“Two days ago I was building grain pads with a tamper, which compresses the ground,” he said during the Mintos’ fall camp last weekend at the Art Hauser Centre. “It’s just physical labour with your arms and body. On top of working out this summer, it keeps me in shape.”
Cooper looks the part. He’s almost six-foot-two and a muscular 175 pounds.
“I had a scout tell my dad not to bulk up, because it’s good to stay in fit (form) and really work the core and legs,” he said. “I took that (advice), because I don’t personally want big, bulky arms, and you can’t really play free.”
Cooper is playing as freely as the expansive fields of Porcupine Plain, where hockey and farming seem to go hand-in-hand. It must be something in the water around the hometown of former NHLer Kelly Chase and, more contemporarily, Anaheim Ducks’ defence prospect Tarin Smith, who last spring captained the Everett Silvertips to the Western Hockey League championship.
“I don’t know, they produce hockey players,” Cooper said about Porcupine Plain’s strong rate of exporting able athletes. “A lot of people like hockey there. It’s a big hockey town. A lot of physical work.”
Cooper is just 17 years old, but he’s like a man with his workmanlike efforts and his approach to pitching in on the farm, in the gym and around the rink. His personal workout shed is steps from his house. His trainer, who plays pro in Europe, is one of his former coaches.
“This summer, I focused a lot on core and lower body,” said Cooper, who scored well in the Mintos’ fitness testing on the first day of camp. “I put on five to seven pounds of muscle mass. I took it as a high priority.
“I want to be good offensively and defensively this year. I want to put up numbers, get our team up in games, and try to win.”
Last season, the two-way centre from the Northeast Wolfpack U18 AA program stepped into the AAA ranks and led the Mintos with 36 points, including 16 goals, in 44 games.
It was a full-circle season for Cooper, who remembered as a child watching the Mintos face the Tisdale Trojans. At the time, he was playing atom AA hockey out of Tisdale.
“We always used to watch the U18 AAA games, and the first game I went to was Tisdale against the Mintos,” he said. “It was a pretty intense game. Since then, it was always a goal of mine to play in the AAA league. Now, being able to play in it is pretty cool.”
Growing up, one of Cooper’s minor hockey teammates was Nipawin-born defenceman Liam Myhre, who has played the past two years with the Mintos and recommended the organization to his buddy.
“I was talking to Liam and he really liked it here,” Cooper recalled. “As soon as I knew I wanted to go beyond the Northeast, I thought, ‘P.A. is a great spot, a great rink, the Raiders are here, so we get to watch them.’ I heard nothing but good things about the school and everything.”
Cooper is a 2025 draft choice of the SJHL’s Nipawin Hawks, but his immediate junior A training camp plans are with the Blackfalds Bulldogs, one of the five Alberta-based teams in the BCHL. He leaves Sept. 2 for the Blackfalds camp and pre-season and expects to audition with the Bulldogs for about two weeks.
“I want to see how the BCHL is, get a taste of that,” said Cooper, noting Prince Albert’s Brady Smith capped his BCHL career with Blackfalds.
Projected to be a leader with the Mintos again this season, Cooper likens his playing style to that of Vegas Golden Knights forward Mitch Marner.
“He’s opposite (shooting) hand to me, but I’ve always looked up to him since I was a kid,” Cooper said.
“When I was younger, I got put to wing, and everybody told me that I should play centre. I’ve played centre ever since, pretty much.”
Wherever he plays, Cooper gets his hands dirty, like any reputable farmer.
The hard-working mentality of farm boys who play hockey has been back in the NHL spotlight in recent years with the Calgary Flames’ first-round selections of Carson Carels this spring and Cole Reschny in 2025. Both former WHL players are about to become teammates at the University of North Dakota.
Although he’s a forward, Cooper has compared himself to Carels, a defenceman from Manitoba, because of their common farming roots.
“He works on their ranch and I work on our farm a lot, spending long hours, and still working out in the morning,” Cooper said. “It’s probably one of the best types of work to experience when you’re younger, because you learn through hard times. My dad says work ethic is big on the farm. I like to help out.”
Work ethic and resiliency — buzzwords often heard in the rink — are every bit as applicable in the lives of farmers.
Cooper shares an affinity for farming with fellow Mintos like his billet-mate, Beau Anholt, a 16-year-old forward from Naicam.
Not to mention Cooper’s cousin, Ethan Janzen, a 16-year-old forward in his first year with Prince Albert. Janzen is also from Porcupine Plain and his father farms with Cooper’s father.
“He’s a quick player, skilled guy,” Cooper said. “He’ll be a good help on the offensive side for our team. It’s good to have him here.”
Back home, the family-run grain farm is a diverse operation.
“A lot of canola, and then your cereals, which is like wheat, barley, oats,” Cooper detailed. “This year, we’re not going to have the best year of a crop, just with a lot of rain at the start of the year, but it won’t be that bad.
“We had a big storm come through and take down 10 bins. Just plow winds, and they tipped 10 bins over and an auger, so it’s been a hard summer just getting everything back in order.”
It was business as usual for Cooper with his hockey training.
The Mintos didn’t need a fitness test to measure how hard Cooper has worked this summer, but the results showed just how ready he is to make an impact this season.
“Max is a guy that, you could tell, he’s put in the work,” said Prince Albert general manager Chris Bourdon. “There are some players who are better at things than he is, but at the same time, overall, we were very happy with how he showed up at camp.
“He’s got great skill, he’s got great poise with the puck, he has the puck on his stick at all times, and he wants it on his stick. That’s the sign of a good offensive player, when they have the puck on their stick lots and they don’t try to get rid of it. He’s confident with it. He’s going to be a big offensive threat for us this year.”
Cooper’s birth name is Maxim, reflective of his mother’s Russian origins. While living in P.A., he calls home every day to keep connected with his parents and his 12-year-old sister, Milana, “a big softball player.”
