After nearly four decades, Les Jackson finally gets his day with the Stanley Cup

Catching up with the former Stars executive who won the 2024 Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers.

Les Jackson is finally going to get his day with the Stanley Cup.

In fact, it’s happening on Sunday where Jackson is planning on doing a community event in Weyburn, Saskatchewan with the youth hockey organization before having a private party with his family.

At that event Jackson will get to see his name on the cup for the first time, inscribed on the fifth line of the Florida Panthers entry, which was earned after the Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.

“They even spelled it right, only with one S in the first name,” Jackson told me Thursday morning.

Jackson was such a long-standing figure in Dallas Stars history, he worked 34 years for the franchise, that it often gets forgotten that he wasn’t there when Dallas won the Stanley Cup in 1999.

Jackson spent the 1998-99 working for the Atlanta Thrashers as they prepped for the expansion draft and the 1999-2000 season as the assistant GM of the eventually-doomed franchise.

He wasn’t part of the 1999 Stanley Cup team, his name wasn’t engraved and he never got a day with the cup. But he did get a Stanley Cup ring after former Stars GM Bob Gainey pushed to make sure Jackson’s contributions to the franchise from 1985 to 1998 were recognized as part of the eventual championship.

“Bob made sure I accepted the ring,” Jackson said. “That was amazing recognition by Bob, he went out of his way to tell me my contribution meant something to that championship team (in 1999) even though I wasn’t there anymore.”

Jackson returned to Dallas before the 2000-01 season as the director of hockey operations, and served in various roles until 2020, when the Stars, citing COVID cost-cutting, didn’t renew his contract.

Jackson planned to retire, he and I actually had lunch in Dallas before the start of the 2020-21 season and he told me at the time that this was the end of his career, it was time to take a step back.

But then Florida Panthers GM Bill Zito called and pushed to hire him, it took four calls for Zito to finally convince Jackson to give up on his short-lived retirement.

“I wasn’t gonna go to work, but I give him a lot of credit,” Jackson said. “It’s been the best four years I’ve had in past 15 years or so. He’s an incredibly great guy to work with got a good stuff and treats everyone incredible.”

Jackson said the change from one franchise to another was good for him, it “refreshed” him and he was able to look at things with a new perspective. He also became close with Roberto Luongo, in fact when Luongo hoisted the Stanley Cup for the first time in his career, it was Jackson who got to pass it off to him.

“That was one of my favorite things, getting the cup, I was able to hand it to him,” Jackson said. “That meant a lot to me, because he’s never won it and he’s Mr. Florida Panther, to be able to be the guy that hands it to the guy that means that much to a franchise, that was really cool.”

With the Panthers Jackson spent three years as a pro scout before Zito promoted him to senior advisor to the GM this season. In that new role Jackson traveled with the team more, spending about 10 days per month on the road, and then traveled with the team throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

For Jackson, now 71, it was a moment that he’d been working for his entire career but had accepted would never happen when he originally planned to retire before Zito’s recruitment.

“It’s cool getting it and the one thing you think about is how unfortunate it is that some of the guys that play forever or coach forever will never get that chance,” Jackson said. “Once it happens for you, you want to see anyone else who’s put in that type of time get that chance as well.”