Ken Daniels - Detroit Red Wings: Stories from the Detroit Red Wings Ice, Locker Room, and Press Box

To my beautiful son, Jamie: his life story never got to be written, but his 23 years could have filled 300 pages with joy, caring, laughter, and loyalty, as his years did for us.

K.D.

Contents

Authors Note

Its not the years in the life, but the life in the years.

For my first 20 years here in Detroit, for some reason, every now and again, Id 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 Id hear, Hey, Ken Kal. Thats a notion I cant 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 isnt on television upwards of 80 nights a season (no face made for radio jokes here by me). Maybe its 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 thats our security guy.

If people didnt get my name correct by calling me using the surnames of one of the other too-many Kens, I would also be known as Theres that Red Wings guy. Hes the one who does the games on TV.

Now its become, Theres that guy whose son passed away.

Thats how I feel Ive become known. And you know something, I dont mind that at all. If thats what it takes to keep my son in peoples thoughts, then I will gladly be known as Jamies 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, Xaviers nickname, Tomas Tatar walked past and saw the two of them and joked, Same mother?

I was lucky enough to meet Xs parents near my home in Birmingham, Michigan, shortly after my son had passed, and I showed Xaviers dad, Robert, how similar they looked. Even he couldnt help but notice the uncanny resemblance. And, to take this one step beyond crazy, Robert and I share the same March 18 birthday.

Ive 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 Ive ever encountered to be miserable in my 32 years covering hockey, in one way or another, was goaltender Tom Barrasso. I dont think Im alone in that thought. So we move on.

When Jamie was with me for a game against Chicago midway through the 201516 season, we sat in seats at the Joe so Jamie could watch his favorite player, Patrick Kane. Patrick was sick, Jamie would say (i.e., sick being a tribute to his sick skills). I wasnt doing that midweek game against Chicago since it was on NBCSN.

As much as Id 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. Its 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 Im 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. Hed met a lot of his favorites 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 didnt 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 Im usually on the periphery listening, so Kane and I had never actually met.

Well, my son couldnt have had a bigger smile on his face except for the one that was on his dads 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 Beekers [Pat Verbeeks] place. Kane billeted with Pat Verbeek and his family while he was playing hockey for the HoneyBaked 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 [Chicago captain Jonathan] 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 Todds second go-around 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 cant imagine what Todd has had to live through this past decade nor what Steve Moore has had to endure. Its none of my business nor anyone elses 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 arent many you can trust, but hes 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 arent as impressionable as they were in younger years.

Sometimes as parents, we wonder how our children view us. We know they love us. But its always nice to hear the unsolicited thoughts about us from the perspective of others.

During Jamies 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 teams 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 201213 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 pick-up game of Spartan players, since their season wasnt yet underway.

Jamie and I were both in awe watching this one players 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 States No. 8 at the time. Chris was a hard worker for Michigan State but couldnt school players like that, not even players from his own school.