Jamie Kompon Appreciation Page

The “Jamie Kompon Appreciation” page is proudly brought to you by Surly & Scribe. To enhance the experience (read: humor), the page is written in first person with the voice of Jamie “Coupon” Kompon as the narrator, humbly pronouncing his qualifications as L.A. Kings powerplay coach and defending his misunderstood success.

(please stop staring at my neck)

Hello. I am Jamie Kompon. Pay no attention to the bastards on this site who refer to me as “Coupon”. They make fun of the fact that I am allegedly poorly paid as an assistant coach. The premise there are legal secretaries and assistant managers at Smart & Final that probably make more money than I do is not a discredit to my credibility.

I started hockey as a young lad. Early on, I battled the frustrations associated with everyone with whom I played being faster, talented and smarter than me but I had the edge on ugly and spirit. Like the fat chick who may not get laid but will one day run a Fortune 500 company, I was determined. Nothing was going to get in the way of my professional hockey aspirations.

I got my first big break at age 23 during the 1989-1990 season with the Hampton Roads Admirals of the ECHL. The ECHL is a proud league that has been the stepping stone for many great NHL players whose names don’t immediately come to mind.

In 20 games, I had 1 goal and 2 assists but 32 penalty minutes which qualified me as a bad ass by all objective standards…in 5 playoff games I may not have had a single point but I amassed 25 additional penalty minutes. That is 5 penalty minutes per playoff game, most of which were due to temper tantrums resulting from teasing and bullying by the opposing team’s players, coaches and my own.

After one season, I moved on to bigger and better things and played for the Cincinnati Cyclones for the 1990-1991 season. In 16 games, I had 7 assists. I didn’t score any goals but goals really don’t mean a whole hell of a lot when you wear the title of “bad ass”. My bad ass skills earned me 34 penalty minutes, again mostly from teasing which at this point escalated to questions about my masculinity with outlandish slurs such as “pussy” and “tampon”, some of which I am sad to say have stuck. I left the Cyclones the following season for the Winston-Salem Thunderbirds. In the land where witches burned at stakes, I scorched the ice with 3 goals and 4 assists in 23 games while increasing my PIM to a “super” bad ass 41 minutes. Over the course of an 82 game NHL season, that would extrapolate to over 13 goals and something like 16 assists. That is more than Dustin Penner will put up for the rest of his career if he remains with the L.A. Kings.

It was at this point in my life when I realized I loved the sport of hockey but didn’t care much for the ice surface. My 6 foot tall, 125 pound frame and 12 inch neck were better suited for a speed and skill game but not in the cold so I moved on to the sport that made me the man I am today and qualified me for what would become my glorious post playing days – roller hockey.

In 1999, I played for the St. Louis Vipers of the Roller Hockey International League…the fact the league and the team are no longer around should not count as a mark against my accomplishments. I scored 2 goals and added 9 assists in only 16 games. The coaches asked me to stay out of the box so that my full skill set could be on display. As such, my PIM dropped to 10 while my plus-minus finished with a + 15. You may ask, “wait a minute Jamie, you said this was in 1999? What the hell did you do from the 1990-1991 season with the Thunderbirds until your stellar 1 season roller hockey career?” I am glad you asked. Mostly, I thought a lot. Being rejected by every ECHL team in the league as well as every other North American hockey organization helped me realize that coaching was my real calling.

I became an assistant coach at McGill University in Montreal. After three seasons, they rewarded my contributions with a “co” head coaching title for the 1994-1995 season. From there, my career catapulted forward in a backward kind of way to assistant coach with the Baltimore Bandits of the American Hockey League for the 1996-1997 season. Working in a professional hockey environment with the Bandits only confirmed my coaching choice as the right path so I once again moved on to bigger and better opportunities, this time in 1997, with the National Hockey League as a video coach for the St. Louis Blues where I was in charge of hitting play, pause and stop. I did so well that the Blues promoted me to Strength and Conditioning coach in 2002-2003 where I primarily spotted the players in the gym. In 2006, I worked my way up the coaching ladder to video coach for Team Canada in the World Championships where, in addition to hitting play, pause and stop, I was asked to turn the VCR and, later, DVD players on and off.

I will give you a moment to catch your breath.

I know there is a rumor about me playing in the German Elite League for one season. To make sure that is not taken out of context, I should say I didn’t “play” as much as I “offered” to play which, unfortunately and mostly due to the language barrier, my coach there regularly turned down. I did manage to sneak on the ice every once in a while for a shift to screams of “erhalten neben dem Eis du Idiot!” which I think translates to “great job, Jamie, now come off the ice so some lesser players have a chance to skate.”

That brings me to Los Angeles where I have been employed for six glorious years. I joined the Kings on July 10, 2006.

I have held the positions of director of amateur development, assistant coach and most recently, as voted by the players, head scapegoat. My primary purpose is to coordinate the powerplay and make sure that its success mirrors that of my own during my illustrious playing days.

I am proud to say as we sit at or near the bottom of the league with the man advantage and year in and year out take the powerplay to new levels of self-deprecation, mission mother fucking accomplished.

That’s about it for me.

It’s been said some of my longevity with the L.A. Kings organization may be due to compromising information I possess on a certain unnamed long-winded member of management. I will just say if that is true, I don’t look at that as blackmail as much as fortuitous job security. Besides, it’s easy to measure success by subjective criteria such as goals, assists and wins but I hope my career has shown that you can transcend numbers with something even more palpable – your hatred for my existence.