Former NHL, Stanley Cup winner coaching local Charleston youth hockey team

When the Charleston Colonials announced that former NHL Carolina Hurricanes standout forward Erik Cole was going to coach the local youth hockey team, Trent Krecker wasted little time in going onto social media to find out more about the team’s new coach.

“Honestly, the only thing I knew about Erik Cole was that he’d won a Stanley Cup,” said Krecker, who is from Pennsylvania. “I didn’t know a lot about him other than the fact that he’d played in the NHL. I think it was a couple of days after that when I went on YouTube and looked at his highlights from when he played.

“Obviously, he was a great player. After watching the videos, it made me that much more excited to get on the ice with him and learn everything I could about playing the game at the highest level.”

Former Carolina Hurricanes forward Erick Cole won the Stanley Cup in 2006. Provided.

After a four-year hiatus, the Charleston Colonials are back on the ice for a second straight season. The Colonials will drop the puck on their home opener against the Carolina Junior Canes at the Carolina Ice Palace beginning at 6:15 p.m. on Oct. 2.

The Colonials play in the United State Premier Hockey League (USPHL), which is one of the largest junior hockey leagues in the world with 75 teams in the U.S. and Canada.

Getting the former Carolina Hurricane forward and U.S. Olympian to coach a Charleston-based junior hockey team was more of a who you know, rather than what you know scenario.

Enter Colonials general manger Matt Reid, who played eights season in the ECHL, including four years with the South Carolina Stingrays.

Cole and Matt Reid were boyhood friends, growing up playing against each other in youth tournaments in Upstate New York. The two became fast friends and eventually played on the same travel team together and again at Clarkson University.

“Erik is one of my best friends,” said Reid, who coached the Colonials during the 2025-26 season. “I wanted to bring Erik into the organization because I knew what a valuable resource he could be for our players. I knew he would be great at developing them and teaching them the right way to play the game.”

Erik Cole coaches the Charleston Colonials during their practice Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in North Charleston.

Cole’s resume speaks for itself.

The Oswego, N.Y. native played 892 games, scoring 265 goals. He scored 20 or more goals five times during his 13-year NHL career, including a personal best of 35 goals for the Montreal Canadians during the 2011-12 season. He was a key player on the Hurricanes’ 2006 Stanley Cup title. That same year he was also named to the U.S. Olympic team.

About a month before the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Cole suffered a fractured vertebra in his neck after getting hit by Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik.

It almost ended his playing career.

“I was going to prove the doctors wrong as long as I could,” Cole said.

During his playing career, however, the thought of getting into coaching rarely entered his mind. But when his career was cut short because of injuries, he began to seriously think about life after he hung up his skates.

“I was forced into retirement, so I clearly wasn’t ready for the next chapter of my life,” Cole said. “When it ended, I was just a hockey dad. I pouted for like a year as a hockey dad and the then the next year, I started coaching my son’s team.”

Erik Cole coaches the Charleston Colonials during their practice Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in North Charleston.

It was while working with his son’s team that Erik Cole began to think about getting into coaching. Coincidently, Reid was already deeply involved in coaching at the youth level in Pennsylvania when he recruited the younger Cole – Landon Cole – to his team.

“Honestly, the whole idea of coaching kind of evolved,” Cole said. “I helped out with a couple of teams and then Matt reached out about having Landon on his team. Every year I would help out, he would be like, ‘it’s you who should be doing this and not me’ kind of thing.

“I came down to Charleston last New Year’s and the conversation about me coming down here and coaching really started to take off. That conversation went on for a couple of months before I decided to come on board.”

Both of Cole’s children were grown by this point and had moved out of the house in Raleigh, N.C. Cole decided it would be better to spend his winters in the Lowcountry rather than at his lake house in Upstate New York.

“It’s quiet and cold in New York,” Cole said with a chuckle. “I could either spent my winters up there or down in Charleston where it’s only winter for maybe two months and spend it with one of my best friends coaching. It was really a no brainer decision for me.

“I’ve always felt like my calling was to be a hockey player. This provides me with an opportunity to do something that is lacking in the game and that’s how to play within a system. The focus now is about individual skating and skill, but not how to play within a system, to play the game the way it’s supposed to be play.”

Cole hasn’t ruled out coaching at the professional ranks – even in the NHL if the opportunity arises.

“It’s not the reason why I got into coaching, but sure I’d entertain the idea if there’s an opportunity out there,” Cole said. “For me, coaching here in Charleston is a great way to start out of my coaching career with one of my closest friends as my general manager.”

Despite not having played in more than a decade, Cole, 47, can still show off his hockey skills to his players.

“He made a no-look pass the other day in practice that went through two guys without even looking right on the guy’s tape,” said Charlie Wingerter, 18, of Greenville. “He’s still got it. He’s teaching us the same system they use in Carolina, so I’m like a sponge around him just learning as much as a I can.”

From the source Reach Andrew Miller at 843-937-5599. Follow him on Twitter @APMILLER_PandC