After his team suffered a shocking loss in the first round of last year’s National Hockey League playoffs, Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper went out and got a University of Virginia hat.

One year later, he was wearing it after his team hoisted the Stanley Cup trophy Monday night.

In a postgame interview with ESPN’s Scott van Pelt, Cooper, still wearing the hat, said the UVA men’s basketball team’s redemption story – going from a devastating first-round loss to 16^th-seeded University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2018 to a national championship in 2019 – inspired his team, even though hockey and basketball don’t have a ton in common.

This was really, really cool. One of the more memorable post championship interviews. https://t.co/9CUlz4gN3y

— Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) September 29, 2020

“I acquired the hat right after we lost, 400-plus days ago,” Cooper told van Pelt. “I don’t know Virginia, I don’t know Tony Bennett, but they have been something to hang hope on this whole time and it was a message that has been with me the whole time.”

The Lightning were heavily favored to win the 2019 Stanley Cup, and had won the National Hockey League’s President’s Trophy, awarded to the team with the best regular season record. Just a few days later, though, they became the first President’s Trophy winner to be swept in the first round of the playoffs – the hockey equivalent of a No. 1 seed losing to a No. 16 seed.

Like coach Tony Bennett and the Cavaliers, Cooper and his team were determined to turn defeat into triumph. The UVA hat, he said, became something of a talisman, something he kept with him through practices and games.

“You need something to hold onto, and it was a really tough time for us last year,” he said. He said he kept thinking, “They did it, why can’t we?”

Now, the Lightning, like the Cavaliers, have discovered something Bennett repeatedly said during the 2019 championship run, a quote from a TED Talk by minister Donald Davis: “If you learn to use it right, the adversity, it will buy you a ticket to a place you couldn’t have gone any other way.”

On Tuesday, Bennett shared his congratulations to Cooper and the Lightning – and complimented his hat.

“Congratulations to Coach Jon and the @TBLightning on winning the Stanley Cup! Awesome. What a great story! Also, that UVA ball cap looks great on you. Go Lightning! Go Hoos!” - Coach TB pic.twitter.com/R2XRg6weSb

— Virginia Men's Basketball (@UVAMensHoops) September 29, 2020