Daniels book a tale of triumph, tragedy
Longtime Red Wings play-by-play broadcaster Ken Daniels’ 23-yearold son died suddenly while he was writing this book with former Windsor Star sports columnist Bob Duff. This excerpt is the author’s note that opens the book, which Daniels dedicated to his son Jamie.
For my first 20 years here in Detroit, for some reason, every now and again, I’d hear, “Hey, Ken Holland.”
Nope. Missed that by about 2 million bucks a year. I told Red Wings general manager Mr. Holland that story and he said, “It might be closer to 3 million.” Now those dollars make more sense.
And then I’d hear, “Hey, Ken Kal.” That’s a notion I can’t quite grasp. I suppose if his name were Bill, I would never be confused with our radio voice.
Kal has been with the Wings two years longer than I have, but his face isn’t on television upwards of 80 nights a season (no face made for radio jokes here by me). Maybe it’s just his shorter last name that rolls off the tongue. I wish he had kept his birth name of Kalczynski.
The case of mistaken identity has happened to Ken Kal, too. One night, KK was hosting a banquet and the guy introducing him reads his bio, and then says, “Ladies and gentlemen, Ken Daniels.”
It seems crazy right? And to think we used to have goaltender Ken Wregget on our team, too. Now we only have one other Ken, besides the aforementioned, and that’s our security guy.
If people didn’t get my name correct by calling me using the surnames of one of the other toomany Kens, I would also be known as “There’s that Red Wings guy. He’s the one who does the games on TV.”
Now it’s become, “There’s that guy whose son passed away.”
That’s how I feel I’ve become known. And you know something, I don’t mind that at all. If that’s what it takes to keep my son in people’s thoughts, then I will gladly be known as “Jamie’s dad.”
My son, Jamie, died suddenly in December 2016, as I was working on this book. It was a shock, a personal tragedy that no parent should ever know, being left to bury a child.
To me, my son is the mirror image of Xavier Ouellet, the Red Wings’ fine young d-man. When Jamie was in the Red Wings room a few years back standing near “X,” Xavier’s nickname, Tomas Tatar walked past and saw the two of them and joked, “Same mother?”
I was lucky enough to meet X’s parents near my home in Birmingham, Michigan, shortly after my son had passed, and I showed Xavier’s dad, Robert, how similar they looked. Even he couldn’t help but notice the uncanny resemblance. And, to take this one step beyond crazy, Robert and I share the same March 18 birthday.
I’ve often felt that hockey people are just the greatest athletes with which to have a conversation. They are personable and for the most part genuine.
The only one, and I mean the only one I’ve ever encountered to be miserable in my 32 years covering hockey, in one way or another, was goaltender Tom Barrasso. I don’t think I’m alone in that thought. So we move on.
When Jamie was with me for a game against Chicago midway through the 2015–16 season, we sat in seats at the Joe so Jamie could watch his favourite player, Patrick Kane. Patrick was “sick,” Jamie would say (i.e., “sick” being a tribute to his sick skills). I wasn’t doing that mid-week game against Chicago since it was on NBCSN.
As much as I’d love to call every Red Wings game, I have enjoyed those nights off to spend with my son; or my biggest fan, my daughter, Arlyn; or my wife, Rebecca, and her kids, Zoe and Ian, at a game. It’s a nice change of pace.
And for those wondering, no, I do not do the play-by-play while I am watching from the seats. I do think of things I might have said while I’m watching, but only to myself, or if one of my kids or my wife had asked about a certain play.
Despite all my years with the Red Wings, Jamie had still not met Patrick Kane. He’d met a lot of his favourites over the years from Marty Brodeur to Alex Ovechkin, but not Kane.
We made our way down to the Blackhawks dressing room and stood there waiting for him to emerge from the change area. Patrick walked right over to me and said, “Ken, how are you? Patrick Kane.” As if I didn’t know. But truthfully, I was surprised he knew me. I was flattered even more so since Jamie was standing right beside me.
Now over the years I have been in those media scrums where we all gather around a player and stick microphones in his face. But I’m usually on the periphery listening, so Kane and I had never actually met.
Well, my son couldn’t have had a bigger smile on his face except for the one that was on his dad’s face.
Kane then said, after I introduced him to Jamie, that he had been watching for years. “I grew up watching you and Mick, when I used to live at Beeker’s place.” Kane billeted with Pat Verbeek and his family while he was playing hockey for the Honey-Baked youth program in Metro Detroit.
And then he added, “I love listening to you and Mick.” He then turned to Jamie and said, “Your dad is the best.”
Well, that made my day, month, and year.
So I snapped a picture of Patrick with Jamie. They shook hands. Jamie grabbed my phone, looked at the photo, and immediately said, “Oh my God, you rocked this, Dad. You even got Toews in the background.” Kane and Toews in the same photo with my son. Now that was lucky!
Like Patrick, Todd Bertuzzi is also a first-ballot personality. I was with Jamie at the Joe back in 2010, in Todd’s second go-round with the Red Wings.
Todd would give his shirt off his back to anyone who needed one. He was a great Red Wings teammate and a great friend to me. I believe Todd trusts me after all these years, in part because I have never mentioned the Steve Moore incident. I can’t imagine what Todd has had to live through this past decade nor what Steve Moore has had to endure. It’s none of my business nor anyone else’s not directly involved. I just hope all can move on successfully in the years ahead.
Jamie came down to the room during a morning skate on the day of a game, and I introduced him to Todd. Big Bert said, “I got him,” and took him around the inner sanctum of the room.
A little while later, Jamie returned and I asked my son how it went. And he replied, “Todd said, ‘Listen to your dad. In this business, there aren’t many you can trust, but he’s one of the good guys. He does it right.’” That meant a lot to me then and even more so today.
Hearing what both Patrick and Todd said goes a long way in the eyes of a child, even if they aren’t as impressionable as they were in younger years.
Sometimes as parents, we wonder how our children view us. We know they love us. But it’s always nice to hear the unsolicited thoughts about us from the perspective of others.
During Jamie’s time as a student at Michigan State, he was working with the Spartans hockey team. Now a Red Wings video coach, Adam Nightingale, previously a MSU alternate captain from 2003 to 2005, went on to become the team’s director of hockey operations and hired Jamie as its student manager. Over the next three seasons, Jamie would video practices and games and break down tape.
The NHL was locked out to start the 2012–13 season, and it was early October. I went to Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing to go to lunch with Jamie, and from the last row of seats, we watched a pickup game of Spartan players, since their season wasn’t yet underway.
Jamie and I were both in awe watching this one player’s rush up the ice as he slashed through three defenders before scoring a spectacular goal. I remember saying, “Who the hell is that?” Jamie noticed a No. 8 on his helmet, but said, “No way that was Chris Forfar,” Michigan State’s No. 8 at the time. Chris was a hard worker for Michigan State but couldn’t school players like that, not even players from his own school.
After practice we ventured down to the room and out walked Red Wings forward Justin Abdelkader. Justin was a former Spartan who needed a place to play, since the NHL players were locked out of the Joe. I quickly realized why that No. 8 rushing up the ice looked so seasoned. Jamie and I both knew no college player was walking around his mates as easily as Justin did. For the most part, the gap is wide from pro to college and that was pretty evident on that one play. It just took us an hour to figure it out.
Most importantly during his time at MSU, Jamie developed some great friendships with Spartan players — guys like Brent Darnell, Matt Berry, and Mackenzie MacEachern, to name just a few. All were terrific players during their time at State and, best of all, wonderful people who were always great to my son.
You never forget the people who touch your life, and that’s why I know no one who ever met Jamie will ever forget him, for he was a young man who touched the lives of everyone he met.
This excerpt from If These Walls Could Talk: Detroit Red Wings by Ken Daniels with Bob Duff is printed with the permission of Triumph Books. For more information and to order a copy, please visit www.trimphbooks.com/WallsRedWings.
I’ve often felt that hockey people are just the greatest athletes with which to have a conversation.