Love of hockey, community earns Lightning nominee Scott Tassone NHL teacher award

Scott Tassone sat just a few steps away from the ball hockey practice area outside of Oakstead Elementary School in Land O’ Lakes early Thursday morning, less than an hour before one of the final days of the 2025-26 school year.

The physical education teacher sported a Tampa Bay Lightning baseball cap and a themed t-shirt which displayed a number of phrases including ‘Student Caring’ and ‘Lightning Cheering’.

Those intertwined characteristics could be the perfect anecdotes to describe Tassone, whose efforts to share his love of hockey with his students and the broader community earned him the honor of the NHL’s 2026 Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher (MVT) Award. The school informed him he won with a surprise pep rally last month.

Each NHL team nominates an educator each season, and voters then dwindle the list to a single champion. Tassone was tabbed the 2026 winner.

“The outpouring of support was just amazing,” a smiling Tassone said. “I didn't think I'd win because there's so many big markets, right? But I figured, hey, we'll have fun trying. To win is truly amazing, and it’s just a great honor.”

Tassone was nominated by Jordan McKenzie, who works as the manager of community and hockey development for the Lightning. McKenzie oversees Tampa Bay’s ball hockey initiatives, which is how he grew to know and appreciate Tassone—the teacher enrolls numerous teams in every ball hockey tournament offered by the Lightning Community & Hockey Development program.

McKenzie said Tassone was one of the first names that came to mind when the NHL sought nominees for this year’s MVT award.

“It’s awesome how much he loves the game of hockey, wants it to grow and is just a really positive individual,” McKenzie said. “Hearing him talk to his teams and how he supports them, he's not there just trying to win a game. He’s there trying to create all-around good individuals and human beings, and it's not about winning or losing, it's just about going there and building character. That’s what I really value and appreciate about Scott.”

Tassone has been a teacher for 28 years, including the last 18 at Oakstead Elementary School. When he was teaching traditional elementary classes, his group of students were often referred to as the ‘Lightning learners’ and he would purchase group tickets to allow his students to attend Bolts games.

He once held Lightning season tickets and attended the first preseason game in team history in 1992. His son, Tucker—named after former Lightning player Darcy Tucker—played hockey through high school.

Eight years ago, he witnessed ball hockey tournaments taking place during Hockey Day in Tampa Bay at the Lightning arena. When the Lightning community hockey team brought ball hockey equipment to the school, Tassone thought, ‘Where could we go from here?’.

“I love hockey, and I was like, ‘I want to teach these kids how to play hockey.’ I want to get them into it because when the Lightning come out and do their development camps,” Tassone said, “the kids just enjoy it so much.”

After the Lightning visit, Tassone began coaching students at the school and enrolling them in area ball hockey tournaments.

Honoring Mason Fox

When one of Tassone’s ball hockey players needed help, Tassone utilized the sport to rally the community.

Mason Fox was a member of the youth ball hockey team that won a gold medal with Tassone at a tournament in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. The Oakwood Elementary student and devoted hockey player was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after the win, and Tassone wanted to help.

“He was a really good hockey player, and his team at the Lakewood Ranch tournament, we won the gold medal,” Tassone said. “Then a month later they found out that he had cancer. So, as the year went on, the summertime came, I'm like, you know, what can we do?”

What better way to do so than the sport Fox loved? Tassone approached the principal, asking if the school could host a ball hockey tournament as a fundraiser for the Fox family in 2024. They raised $7,000 in the 4-on-4 event, offering games across four divisions in third, fourth and fifth grade as well as girls teams.

Fox played in the first year of the Mason Fox Ball Hockey Tournament in the midst of his fight against cancer. The Lightning hockey development team traveled to the school with four portable rinks and donated shirts for the event.

“He was always smiling, always happy, and he loved hockey. That put us in the same mindframe,” Tassone said of Fox. “He was always one to help out the kids that were playing for the first time, always smiling, always happy. His classmates loved him, so to see this happen to him I was like, we’ve gotta do something. He's such a good kid, and it's just a sad happening to a good person who was so young.”

The youngster passed away one month later, and the tournament has continued each February in his honor. In 2026, that same tournament saw 40 teams and over 350 kids play from a handful of area schools.

The tournament raised $8,000 in year two, money that was split between the Fox family and a pair of staff members who were fighting cancer. The 2026 tourney then eclipsed $10,000 in funds raised, which went to the Smile Like Mason Foundation that was started by the Fox family to fight pediatric cancer.

The Lightning have donated signed memorabilia as auction items for the Mason Fox tournament and provided ball hockey equipment. 

The school recently received a fresh batch of new ball hockey sticks, another set of goalie pads, hockey balls, jerseys and a shooting trainer for the nets from the NHL as part of the MVT award. That follows the continued donation and involvement by the Lightning Community Hockey program.

“I've been doing this for eight years, and I want to do it for eight more years until I retire, and then maybe I’ll volunteer to come back and do it. I couldn’t have done it without the Lightning with all the equipment they've given and the joy that they bring to the kids when they give them the sticks and a ball to play.”

Tassone was also awarded two tickets to an NHL event, and he’s taking his son to the 2027 Discover Winter Classic in Salt Lake City to see the Utah Mammoth and Colorado Avalanche play on New Year’s Eve.

‘He always has the answer’

The ball hockey season runs from October to February, and Tassone runs 8 a.m. practices before school. Those practices initially saw about 15 kids, but now that number has doubled.

Fifth-grader Russell Albanese is a frequent participant who appreciates his coach’s sense of humor as well as his passion for the sport. Albanese said Tassone helped him improve his shot as well as his stick handling.

“I've been doing this with him for about three years now, and I’ve played a lot of tournaments and won a bunch of medals with him,” Albanese said.

Albanese said his teacher constantly carries a Lightning-themed cup or mug in his hand at school, a trait also noticed by fellow student Hailee Caliendo.

“A lot,” Caliendo guessed of the depth of Tassone’s hockey knowledge. “He wears hockey stuff almost every day, so I think he knows a bunch. He’s really funny sometimes, and if you need help with anything he always has the answer.”

As the students spoke outside the school on Thursday, a polished memorial bench in honor of Fox stood prominently in the background. 

Albanese on Friday donned a shirt from one of the Mason Fox tournaments, which played a big part in Tassone’s recognition.

“I hope it's worthy of his memory,” Tassone said of ball hockey and the event. “I try so hard to make sure everybody has fun, everybody has an opportunity, because that's how he was. Kids that couldn't play, he helped them out. Instead of scoring 20 goals, he'd get 15 assists trying to get somebody else goals. He was a big inspiration and such a good kid.”

He doesn’t take the honor lightly.

“To get into the race with all the 31 other teams—being from a small community and the support from the Oakstead community, I can't stress that enough. They do anything we need here…They support the school, they support me with all this hockey stuff, and there's nobody that doesn't know how much I love the Tampa Bay Lightning and hockey.”

On the other side of the equation, the Lightning don’t take an ambassador such as Tassone for granted, either. 

The sport needs people like Tassone.

“As we all know, hockey is a really expensive sport to get into. The Lightning tried to start with ball hockey just to get a stick and ball into these kids' hands. But we need assets like Scott to be able to help continue growing the game once we leave their school,” McKenzie said. “He takes our curriculum and he takes the passion of hockey, and for each class, each kid coming into his school, we know they’re going to get a stick and ball and they're going to learn the game, and that's going to just help grow the sport and allow us to continue growing and giving back to the game of hockey as it's given to all of us.”