Nick Nickson – and those who know him best professionally – reflect back on an incredible journey

Sometimes after he began providing analysis on LA Kings broadcasts, former Kings forward Daryl Evans would look over at broadcast partner Nick Nickson and for a moment he might close his eyes and listen to Nickson’s distinctive, rumbling description of the action on the ice, transporting Evans to the time he was just a regular guy in the car business listening along as Nickson brought the Kings’ games to life.

“It’s been an unbelievable period of time knowing Nick,” said Evans who joined the organization as a player in the early 1980s about the same time Nickson was moving his family west for his great California adventure. “And then I stepped away from the game after I played, and I remember when I was in the car business and I’d be driving when the team was back East, and I’d be listening to Nick on the radio, and it just became a voice that I became very in tune with, and so when I started to work with him on the air, it seemed like a seamless transition, because I’d listened to him for so long while I was in the car business.”

It’s the call, of course, distinctive and true that remains Nickson’s calling card to this day, but it’s the fact it’s been Nickson’s call for more than four decades that makes all this so truly remarkable.

It’s also what brings a kind melancholy as Nickson works his way through his final season with the team before retiring to spend time with his wife, Carolyn, their two sons and two grandchildren.

“I think this is where consistency and longevity comes in, that people know exactly what they’re looking at because they’ve listened to Nick for so long,” Evans said. “I think that the constancy in his delivery, the consistency that he’s had over all the years, it really hasn’t changed at all, in my opinion, but he does a great job. I’m right beside him listening, and sometimes I can close my eyes and I’d be sitting there, like I was in the car driving, and I’d be seeing the same thing. So, it’s pretty cool having had that seat beside him for so long.”

Nick Nickson grew up in radio.

His father, also Nick, was a disc jockey and sales manager for radio stations in Nickson’s hometown of Rochester, New York spinning records from 1947 to 1967 and working in the radio business for close to 60 years.

On Saturdays, Nickson would take the bus down to the studio and watch as the disc jockeys played a new thing called rock and roll and he’d watch the interplay between the DJs and the technicians and other radio station staff.

It was a pretty cool way to grow up and Nickson figured one day he’d like to own his own station.

Nickson was still thinking along those lines when he graduated from Ithaca College’s broadcast program.

Nickson had called some games at college – football, baseball, basketball and hockey, of course. And after graduation, while he was DJ’ing to pick up some extra cash, his dad called to say he knew the Rochester Americans were looking for someone to do play-by-play.

An interview was scheduled and Nickson searched through his box of college stuff and there it was, one unmarked reel of tape.

The problem was Nickson didn’t have any idea what was on that tape.

“I put it on my machine and it was an Ithaca College/Oswego State hockey game that I did and I listened to it and I said I can’t turn this in,” Nickson recalled with a laugh.

Putting his trusty razor and tape to work Nickson whittled down the unsatisfactory broadcast to about four or five minutes of usable material and that was what he presented. Whatever it was, it was enough.

“The rest, as they say, is history. But if that tape is a baseball game or a football game, I’m not I’m not having this conversation with you today,”
Nickson added.

Perhaps there are hockey gods after all.

Less than two years later Nickson was on his way to New Haven, Connecticut to call Nighthawks games. Less than five years later Nickson got a call from the Nighthawks’ parent club, the LA Kings, asking if he’d like come west and work with Bob Miller on Kings broadcasts.

Nickson and wife Carolyn had just had their first son, Nicholas, two months before. But they figured, what the heck, it was a two-year deal, they’d go west see some sights and presumably head back east after that.

“I had never been west of Ohio in my life,” Nickson recalled.

More than four decades later Nickson is winding down his Hall of Fame broadcasting career, having cemented himself as a broadcasting icon for multiple generations of Kings fans.

“You know that generational thing kind of makes you feel, aside from being old, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, that you’ve been part of people’s lives, for the happy moments of their lives because you know all these all the sports fans all over the world they have a passion for their favorite teams,” Nickson said. “To be just you know associated with it in any small way is I think those are so meaningful, those are meaningful relationships.”

Chuck Kaiton recalls it this way.

In the spring of 2015, the long-time radio voice of the Hartford Whalers and Carolina Hurricanes called Nickson under the pretext of telling Nickson that he and his wife, Mary, would be coming to the Los Angeles area and were hoping to stay at their place for maybe six or seven nights.

There was a pause. Nickson and Kaiton were not just broadcasting legends in their respective markets, they were close friends. But, gee, six or seven nights is a long time no matter how much you like another couple.

Kaiton quickly let Nickson off the hook. The head of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association wasn’t looking to move in but was calling Nickson to tell him he was the 2015 recipient of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award that would see Nickson enshrined in The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Kaiton lists the name off as though identifying the figures on Mount Rushmore.

Chick Hearn, Vin Scully, Bob Miller and Nick Nickson.

Appointment listening and viewing if you were a sports fan in California for literally decades.

Regardless of the sport, the greats are like old friends. Even if you’ve never come closer than your television or radio to meeting Nick Nickson it doesn’t matter, the bond created over the years, through literally thousands of hockey games shared on radio and television, is as real and meaningful as a Drew Doughty hip check.

“He became a partner to the listener and a very comfortable voice and as you said It had a lot of impact,” Kaiton said. “I thought he was the perfect choice to be the successor for Bob Miller (on television broadcasts) because people knew that Nick was that friendly voice. I mean, he’s got a tremendous voice, number one, his delivery and his whole demeanor on the air and his attention to detail. He’s very understated. He uses his color people, Jimmy Fox and Daryl Evans, very well. They have a wonderful chemistry and interaction and I think all those things are very important.”

When Nickson left Rochester for New Haven, his replacement was Rick Peckham who would go on to enjoy an admirable career calling Tampa Bay Lightning games.

When the Kings were in Tampa earlier this season Peckham made a point of visiting the team’s broadcast booth to speak to his old friend and wish him well in retirement.

“I’ve always admired how he has a very measured call, he’s not a frantic type of announcer,” Peckham said. “There’s an innate editing talent that develops through the years as an announcer where your brain picks out what needs to be described and what you need to gloss over and move on. So, he really has that innate facility to keep a very good pace of call that I think really entertains the fans, but it also informs the fans when they need to know it. He’s not behind the play. He manages to be right on top of the play. Just to see that he’s getting the accolades that he’s long deserved. And here he is still years later, at the top of his game.”

Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NHLI via Getty Images

Jim Fox first met Nickson while Fox was still playing for the Kings.

They were in Buffalo at a hotel near the old Buffalo Auditorium and Nickson’s father was visiting from nearby Rochester.

Fox figures he was four or five rooms away from the Nickson reunion.

“I could hear them, his dad’s voice was as booming as Nick’s. I could hear them like they were standing right next to me. So, that’s my first memory, it’s an auditory memory,” Fox said with a laugh.

For the record, Nickson acknowledges that Fox is not the only member of the team’s traveling party over the years to have noted just how distinctive the Nickson voices are when combined, especially at nap time on a game day.

When Fox first made the transition to providing analysis for the Kings, one of the first people he went to was Nickson to learn how Nickson prepped for games and how he gathered and compiled and laid out the stats and information that may come in handy during the next broadcast.

“Nick is one of the most practical people I know and at the same time, he’s one of the guys that goes outside the box,” said Fox. “He’s a good thinker, if I can put it that way, he just really is, if you want someone to just get an understanding of a certain idea, area, he’s on top of things.”

Sometimes people misunderstand the roles of a play-by-play broadcaster and color analyst. Two people sitting in a booth talking about a game, pretty simple, right?

Uh. No.

“I don’t expect listeners to think of this or viewers to think of this because they’re there just to, hopefully, just to enjoy the game, but play-by-play and analysts are completely different jobs,” Fox said. “Nick knows his lane, and he stays in that lane. He knows what his job is, and I think that’s the professional part of Nick is that he knows what the play-by-play responsibilities are, and he sticks to that to a ‘T’.”

And that’s what makes for a memorable broadcast.

“It’s huge because it opens the window for the analyst,” Fox added. “He just allows you the space and that space is important. It’s really important to find it, because for the analyst, a lot of times you’re speaking in five to seven-second bursts.”

The reality is that not all broadcasts are as harmonious as the Kings’ radio and television broadcasts have been for literally decades.

“It’s a game full of egos, it has to be,” Fox said. “You’re sharing your own unique vision of an event that means a great deal to thousands and thousands of fans. But there’s a difference between having an ego and knowing your job. Nick knows that line as well as anyone in the business.”

For his part, Nickson said it’s simple, especially as he’s edged closer and closer to ending his Hall of Fame career. He doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone and his colleagues so much more than simple workmates.

“I said to them, ‘I want you two to be the stars of the show now,'” Nickson added. “I mean, if you guys see something you want to talk about, go right ahead. I’ll just lay it out and I’ll bet you we probably missed only one or two goals out of what, 500, the last two years.”

Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images

When future Hall of Fame winger Luc Robitaille showed up in Los Angeles in the fall of 1986, two years after the Kings had selected him 171st overall in the ’84 draft, the left-winger didn’t speak much English.

But he loved to watch movies and often on the road he joined Nickson and Miller for matinees or evening showings on off-nights.

“We used to joke that we were movie critics,” Robitaille said.

Shawshank Redemption comes to mind as one memorable movie the group saw and discussed together. Even now, when Robitaille joins the team on the road, he and Nickson will break down recent movies they’ve seen.

Of course, Robitaille’s relationship with Nickson has changed over the years as he became team president and got a birds’ eye view of Nickson’s impact in the community and a full understanding of the depth of his relationship with Kings fans.

“It’s really important for your fans to be able to relate with someone,” Robitaille said. “So, Nick, what he’s done for us…everyone that likes hockey or likes the Kings in California, that was what they did, they listened to Nick. So, he became part of their world when it came down to hockey. So, a lot of kids grew up with him.”

Now those kids are older and have kids of their own and they have passed that love of the game and of the Kings and of Nickson and his broadcast partners on to a new generation of fans.

“It’s incredible when you think about if you’re a hockey fan in LA or you’re a Kings fan in LA, Nick Nickson and Bob Miller were your voices. That’s how you learn the game. That’s how you watch the game forever,” Robitaille said.

Nickson has earned his time with his grandkids and children and wife. Of that there is no doubt. But Robitaille has no intention of letting Nickson disappear. As has been the case with Bob Miller, there will always be a place for Nickson in the Kings family. The fans wouldn’t have it or want it any other way.

“I mean, all Kings fans, all of us that are hockey fans in Southern California, are going to miss Nick,” Robitaille said. “But that being said, he’s not going away.”

Evans has taken the seat next to Nickson on the team charter for many years. He’s a crossword guy while Nickson spends travel time invariably working on game notes for the next contest. Evans, Fox, Nickson and the broadcast team have enjoyed many a road night at favorite restaurants across the NHL landscape.

Of course, Evans has had a front-row seat on many levels to how Nickson has contributed to the continued growth of the game in Southern California from Wayne Gretzky on through the two Stanley Cup seasons in 2012 and 2014 and now with this younger, exciting iteration of the team.

“People love to connect with him, and he’s very approachable, he kind of comes as advertised. The voice that you hear on the radio, or listen to on TV, he’s that person away from the game as well,” Evans said.

The reality of doing the job Nickson has done is that you spend more time with your colleagues than you do your family. That’s about to change for Nickson.

“He’s in a happy place, and for him to be able to leave the game on his call, I’m happy for him,” Evans said.

Perhaps not surprisingly Evans will carry with him forever the moment that Nickson confirmed the Kings’ first-ever Stanley Cup win in 2012.

“I not only listened but I turned my head and watched, and just the call that he made when the Kings won that first Stanley Cup, that’ll be something that’ll resonate in my head all the time, and I’m hoping, for him and for all of us, and for all Kings fans that that’s the last call he makes at the end of this year, and that would be a great, great way to sail off,” Evans said.