Steve Simmons - The Lost Dream

THE LOST

DREAM

VIKING CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2011

All efforts have been made to locate the permission holders for all of the images. All photographs except for that of the Frost cottage provided by Steve and Sue Jefferson. Frost cottage photograph by Joe Warmington.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)

Copyright Steve Simmons, 2011

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Simmons, Steve, 1957

The lost dream : how NHL ambition destroyed one Canadian family / Steve Simmons.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-670-06529-5

1. Danton, Mike, 1980. 2. Frost, David, 1967. 3. Jefferson family. 4. St. Louis Blues (Hockey team) Biography. 5. Hockey playersCanadaBiography. I. Title.

GV848.5.D33S54 2011 796.962092 C2011-903929-X

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To Sheila, Jeffrey, and Michael,
who make all my dreams possible

To Jody, the brother I lost too soon
and never knew or understood

CONTENTS

PREFACE

In the summer of 2002, at the tender age of 21, Michael Stephen Jefferson, a little-known professional hockey player, legally changed his name to Michael Sage Danton, ostensibly divorcing himself from his biological family.

His parents, Steve and Sue Jefferson, were never informed of the name change. They learned about it the way they learned about much of the rest of Mikes hockey-playing career and life: They read about it in the newspapers. To this day, the Jeffersons, including younger brother Tom, remain heartbroken, discouraged, and shattered over the change of name and all that has happened, real and imagined, to cause it.

That same summer, Mikes hockey mentor and surrogate father, David Frost, was certified as a player agent by the National Hockey League Players Association. Those changes, first of ones name, then of the others title, may have seemed insignificant and unimportant at the time, except to the Jefferson family. But both these men, in their chosen professions of hockey player and hockey agent, would soon become well known and not necessarily for the right reasons.

This book is not just Mike Dantons and David Frosts story, and they have not participated in most of the fact gathering here. Primarily, this is the story of a fragmented family and the circumstances surrounding a hockey dream gone wrong. There is some language here that is graphic and that may offend some. There are parts of this story that may be difficult to comprehend and digest. For that, I apologize in advance.

It would be impossible to try to tell this story any other way.

Steve Simmons, 2011

1

Life, Death, and the
Stanley Cup Playoffs

All his life, Mike Jefferson wanted nothing more than to play professional hockey. It was his passion, his obsession, his identity. It defined the odd life that he lived. He was a hockey player, first and foremost. Not a strategist. Not a deep thinker. Not even a very mature young man. He was a hockey player in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the very first time and what could be better than that?

This is, after all, the stuff dreams are made of. Kids and Canada and hockey. It is our game, our dream. We have all seen those Stanley Cup moments of elation. Theyre on television every June, on commercials every spring. In our minds, and on our driveways and backyard rinks, we have all scored that big playoff goal, those of us culturally and recreationally attached to hockey. We have all, in our thoughts, skated out on the ice for that first playoff game, with the crowd chanting our name, the noise blaring, the arena full of anticipation and excitement.

We may have dreamed it: Mike Jefferson, under a new name, lived it. It is remarkable for any kid from a bedroom community north and west of Toronto, or anywhere for that matter, to make it this far in professional hockey, to make a name for himself and have it stitched on the back of an NHL sweater. Its all the more remarkable for that kid to be lacing up his skates come playoff time. It is what he plays for, lives for as an athlete. Making the NHL is an against-all-odds proposition in the first place, especially when your talent doesnt come easily, when your size doesnt cast a shadow quite as long as your teammates, when your skill doesnt match up against that of your opponent. But there was something inside Mike Jefferson, something not easily defineda purpose, a tenacity, an energy, an unmatched willthat brought him to the best hockey league in the world.

That took him to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the very first time.

Easter weekend 2004 should have been the best time of Mike Jeffersons young hockey life, except he wasnt Mike Jefferson any more. Two years earlier, he had changed his name to Mike Danton, divorcing himself from the family he grew up in, bringing more attention to a career that would have been better off with less. Having chosen the company of his agent, mentor, coach, and surrogate father, David Frost, over that of his own father, Steve, his own mother, Sue, and his own younger brother, Tom, made him infamous before he was about to become famous. The name Danton was picked pretty much out of a hathe borrowed it from a kid he had met years before at hockey school. The timing of the name change, however, was anything but coincidental. It corresponded with Frost being certified as a player agent by the National Hockey League Players Association. Jefferson took a name; Frost garnered a new title. They both became famous, in a hockey world sort of way, but for none of the reasons either of them would ever see coming.

Hey Ronnie, its Mike Danton calling

Dantons St. Louis Blues were playing the impressive San Jose Sharks in their April 2004 first-round playoff series. Dantons job for the Blues was very simple: he was there to play the pest and unnerve the Sharks. He was to get under the skin of his opponents and try to distract them by saying things, doing things, keeping San Jose players on edge. And if all else failed, under the right game circumstances, he was there to fight.