Professional hockey player from BBP

Pat Cannone grew up in Bayport, graduated from Bayport-Blue Point High School in 2004, and was a hockey forward for 11 professional seasons. Cannone attended Miami University in Ohio and post-college was signed by the Ottawa Senators, playing Minor League Hockey for the Senators’ affiliate.

Cannone then spent three seasons with the Chicago Wolves, the St. Louis Blues’ affiliate, then played for the Iowa Wild in the Minnesota Wild organization. Cannone made his NHL debut with the Minnesota Wild in 2016, then post his NHL career played professional hockey in Germany. Cannone currently resides in Ohio and is a coach for the AAA Blue Jackets, coaching high-level youth hockey.

He recently sat with the Suffolk County News for an interview:

SCN: Can you talk about growing up in Bayport?
Cannone: It was great. We moved from Ronkonkoma to Bayport when I was in middle school. I was really big into roller hockey at that time, so having a big group of friends from the roller hockey world that lived in Bayport-Blue Point, we’d always play out of Faceoff, the outdoor rink by Nicholls Road. And yeah, that was where we grew up playing and it was a great childhood there in Bayport, living right near the water, and as I got older, hockey got more serious. It turned into ice and it was just a great all-around experience growing up there.

SCN: In 2011, you were signed as an undrafted free agent by the Ottawa Senators, and you spent three seasons playing for the Binghamton Senators. How did you enjoy that the Ottawa organization gave you the opportunity to play at the professional level? Also, you were teammates a bit with Mika Zibanejad. Can you talk about Mika?
Cannone: I’m very thankful for Ottawa. They signed me out of college, so they gave me the opportunity right away to live out my dream, and in Binghamton I learned a lot about myself as a young professional, just daily habits of being a pro. They gave me a lot of opportunity at the American League level. After college, when I signed there, the Binghamton Senators were in a big playoff push and they made the playoffs, and so I was able to join them for the ride their whole playoff journey and they ended up winning the whole thing, the Calder Cup, so I didn’t play in the playoffs I was still there for the whole journey and I kind of learned a lot about the process of being part of a championship culture, so I think that was really, really beneficial for me, my first year seeing that and taking what I learned into my next years in Binghamton, and so on. And yeah, during the lockout in 2012, our team in Binghamton, we had a lot of players down from Ottawa because of the lockout, so Mika was there. Ben Bishop, Robin Lehner, Mike Hoffman, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and they’re all great guys and Mika was great. He was not supposed to be in the American League if the NHL was playing, he’d be in the NHL, but when he was down, he had a great attitude. He was really friendly; he’s a very smart guy. I believe he speaks seven languages. Yeah, so even though I was older than him, I learned a bit from him and just how he approached the game and took care of himself, but it was a great learning experience and to play with him, too, and to be on powerplays with him and things like that, it definitely makes the game a lot easier.

SCN: You’re currently a coach for the AAA Blue Jackets. Can you talk a bit about what you do as the director of player development and advancement?
Cannone: I‘ve had a good relationship here with the hockey people in Columbus. Ed Gingher, the president of the AAA Blue Jackets organization, has been a great friend of mine and I’ve known him for a long time when I was playing, so when I was done playing it was kind of something I kind of wanted to get involved in, so yeah, being a part of player development helping these kids kind of achieve their goals because I was once in their shoes, so it’s really beneficial for me to do that and help them in any way I can. I do video with a lot of these kids, I coach the 16U team, I run tons of skill clinics, I run our summer skates. So, there’s a lot that goes into it, but these kids are dedicated. They want to be hockey players, so that makes it very enjoyable on my end. And coaching at the 16U level in the beginning, I wasn’t really sure about it, but it’s something I really grew to really like. The age where these kids are pretty much draft eligible, where they’re getting heavily scouted by colleges, USHL teams, NHL teams, so it’s high level and the kids are being recruited and heavily at that age, so just dealing with the college coaches and high-level junior coaches and try and help these kids progress into those areas where they want to be is a lot of fulfillments on my end.