Devin Cooley had a somewhat spontaneous introduction to ice skating as a young boy growing up in the South Bay.
His older brother, Ryan, was part of an 11-member Cub Scout group trying to earn skating badges. So his mom and dad, Heynia Loro-Cooley and Scott Cooley, and other parents took the boys to an outdoor rink in Palo Alto.
Devin, then 5, saw everyone on the ice and wanted to get out there as well, and Heynia obliged by putting skates on him, too.
“He’d never skated before,” Heynia said. “So, I put skates on the kid and he took off. He was better than his older brother.”
Cooley hasn’t stopped since.
Cooley, now 26 and in his fourth professional season, will make his NHL debut Sunday night when the San Jose Sharks play the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center. A Los Gatos native, Cooley will become just the fourth player from Santa Clara County to suit up for an NHL game, and the first to do it in a Sharks uniform.
Cooley’s parents were ecstatic to hear their son had been acquired by the Sharks from the Buffalo Sabres on March 8. Devin Cooley played for the Jr. Sharks for years and attended dozens of games at the Tank before he moved away from home eight years ago to further his career.
“So having it come full circle and seeing him play for the Sharks,” Scott Cooley, Devin’s dad, said, “it’s just nothing short of a miracle.”
Besides seeing him quickly adapt to the ice, Scott and Heynia knew there was little doubt that Devin wanted to be a goalie.
When Cooley first began playing, teams at that age level would have everyone play a variety of positions. Once Cooley began playing goalie at age 6, though, he found his calling.
“It was maybe his second year,” Scott said, “and they said ‘Hey, Devin, do you want to try it?’ So they threw him in, and he just loved it and never looked back.”
While some kids enjoyed scoring goals or playing with the puck in the offensive zone, Cooley loved being the one stopping those shots and playing the most important position on the ice.
“Whether you win or lose, so much is dependent on the goalie,” Scott said. “I think he liked that position that he could make his fate.
“Just having that ability to kind of set your path and really excel at something without having to be completely dependent on the team, even though he is to a certain extent. But he’s an independent kind of guy.”
Devin Cooley was around 16 years old and playing at the AAA level in San Jose when his parents started to think their son could have a future in hockey past the youth level. Like other special players his age, there were opportunities to go to a more traditional hockey environment with better competition.
Heynia said a conversation took place where Devin needed to decide to go all in on hockey or start thinking about a Plan B past high school. Devin, naturally, wanted to see how far he could go in the sport.
“He decided, ‘I want to take this to the next level,’” she said.
Devin Cooley remained with the Jr. Sharks and graduated with his class at Los Gatos High School in 2015.
Undrafted, Cooley, now at 6-foot-5 after a late growth spurt, moved to Muskegon, Michigan to play at the USHL level and the next season, split time between the Springfield Jr. Blues of the NAHL and Wenatchee Wild of the BCHL before he began a three-year career at the University of Denver in 2017.
In his sophomore year with the Pioneers, Cooley had a .934 save percentage in 20 games, still the second-highest single-season mark in program history.
Cooley went 15-9-4 with a 1.93 GAA, .927 save percentage, and six shutouts in three seasons with Denver and signed an entry-level contract with the Nashville Predators in Sept. 2020.
“Denver doesn’t have a football team, and it doesn’t have another team that is front and center like their hockey team,” Scott said. “So at 6-foot-5, you really stand out. Him walking around the campus, he was like the hometown hero in Denver.”
Cooley spent most of his first full pro season in the ECHL and has spent most of the last three years in the AHL in the Predators and Sabres organizations without getting the chance to play in an NHL game. With the Milwaukee Admirals, he backed up Connor Ingram, now with the Arizona Coyotes, in 2021-2022, and top Predators prospect Yaroslav Askarov in 2022-2023.
Down on the Sabres’ depth chart, too, there were times when Cooley, according to his mom, wasn’t sure whether he’d get a chance to play in the NHL.
“He’s had a lot of sitting on the bench,” Heynia said. “A lot of having to just show up every day at practice and be the very best that he can, knowing that he’s not going to get the playing time. That wears on you after a while and you start to question yourself and doubt yourself.
“So we’ve had lots of conversations about really truly believing that you are in the right place at the right time and that you are aligned with what’s supposed to happen at this moment. If you go too far forward with your thinking, you’re going to make yourself crazy.”
Here's a photo of Devin Cooley's first time on the ice as a 5-year-old at an outdoor rink in Palo Alto. He's on the right side in the yellow shirt.
Twenty-one years later, he's in the NHL. First Santa Clara County native to play a game for the Sharks. pic.twitter.com/g2pja5uIN3
— Curtis Pashelka (@CurtisPashelka) March 17, 2024
Cooley was acquired by the Sharks from the Sabres for a 2025 seventh-round pick and as a pending unrestricted free agent, his time in the organization might be brief. The Sharks for next season already have goalies Mackenzie Blackwood, Vitek Vanacek, Magnus Chrona, and Georgi Romanov under contract, with Eetu Makiniemi a restricted free agent.
For now, though, Cooley’s living the dream, having come a long way from those first few steps on the ice in Palo Alto two decades ago.
“Devin has been the one that’s been the driving force behind his success,” Heynia said. “You never had to wake him up for practice. He was always the one who was diligent about making sure he had his meals, and that he was on time.
“He was a self-motivator from the start. This is his passion.”
