It’s rare to find someone as good as his or her profession at the end of a career as he or she was at the start, particularly in sports. However, in Los Angeles, broadcasting excellence often carries from generation to generation: Chick Hearn, Vin Scully, Bob Miller, and Nick Nickson. All were and are as thrilling to listen to half a century after their debut as they were as young men. In fact, more so. Now, the last of those named is to retire. Nick Nickson has been calling Kings games for 44 years and something above 3800 NHL games, and at the end of the season, that’s it. Your radio and TV will feature someone else describing the LA Kings’ exploits.
Nickson is 71, and he has grandchildren he wants to spend more time watching play sports and a spouse who would love to take him on more travel adventures. And so he’s moving on from the broadcast chair where he sat for so long. But not before a proper farewell. The Kings did that Tuesday prior to their game versus the Jets.
This retirement took no one by surprise. Last year, Nickson said, he was thinking of calling his final game, but team president Luc Robitaille asked him to make his swan song last two years. “That cost me another cruise” as a bribe to his wife, Nickson joked to media members before Tuesday’s game.. Now that time period has ended.
How does it feel? “With a night like this and the feeling that the regular season Is winding down, it’s like ‘Yeah, this is really happening.’ It’s going to wrap up and wind down, and I will be retired when the season comes to an end,” he said. But he also said, “But I’ve expected this. It’s been on my radar a couple of years. I’m good with everything. I just hope the team has a good playoff run in my last season.” His only wish? “I don’t want the last series to be against Edmonton, because that was my first series, in 1982. My first playoff series was the Miracle on Manchester.”
This year, a loss versus the Oilers) would mean the LA Kings’ season went the same way four disappointing years in succession.
But back to the retiree, who said, “It’s starting to hit home, but I’m ready.” You’ve gotta go out sometime. Nice to do it while you could still do your job with excellence for many more years to come.
Nickson commented, “I’m good with it all. I’m just good with it all.” He added, “I want to do what I want to do while I’m still healthy enough to do it all.” He named golfing and traveling, plus seeing his kids, as top of the list.
You could put a question like the following one to every play-by-play announcer in any sport: What was your “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” moment. Nickson knows his, which are two Stanley Cups, won at home. He was doing Kings radio at the time. He’s on the TV side in the team’s current single-feed set-up.
When asked about such shining moments, he starts with the Cups and the joy of hearing fans’ reactions to winning, tours through some of the great players in Kings history starting with Marcel Dionne, and then ends with the 500th goals of Robitaille and Kurri. “Those great moments that the players really don’t think about until after their career is over, but in the moment, it’s big for me because I’m part of their history and NHL history.”
A personal accolade to go along with the team’s success is that in 2015, Nickson was admitted to the HHOF. Broadcasters don’t go in next to the players, but they find their place there after winning the Foster Hewitt Award, presented by the NHL Professional Broadcasters Association and the Hall
But he also cited the closeness he feels with fans. For years, he and Daryl Evans had a popular post-game radio call-in show called “Kings Talk.” It was 45 minutes of opinion and celebration of all things Kings, and this gave fans a pleasant coming down as they drove home. Win or lose, the show kept the feeling of community and allowed either venting about or celebrating what the players had done on the ice that night.
Lately, Nickson’s responsibilities on a given night do not involve the post-game, so he packs up and leaves the booth as soon as the game is over. This means, he explained, that fans are still around, many who talk to him. He thrives on this interaction.
IH, knowing Nickson is an amateur historian par excellence, asked if he was going to continue his practice as an archivist of all things LA hockey. “Over the years, I’ve archived a lot of the highlights of Kings hockey. We use them on our broadcast, “This Date in Kings History.” I enjoy doing it. I’ve been doing it for so many years it’s going to be hard to go cold turkey.
Then he dropped a bit of a bomb: “I won’t be doing the games, but I’d still like to do things for the organization, whether it’s that [history], helping out with the broadcasters, making appearances, things like that. I’ll be around, and I’ll certainly be at a lot of home games.”
Speaking of tutoring the next people in the art of broadcasting, it’s like with a great singer. You can train a voice all you want, but some are just special. They open their mouth, and give a gift to the world. Nobody can create a melodious baritone with a rich silky tone like Nickson has, but neither did his ability to call plays come from nowhere. An eye to see the nuances, a sense of the game that allows anticipation, a style that purposefully builds to a crescendo as the puck arrives at the net—these are things he had to work on, and skills that have not diminished with time. And this is what he can pass along to the “next one” whoever that might be.
Nickson’s pregame retirement ceremony was attended by some LA Kings royalty, including Robitaille, and by the Nickson family, including his wife and his two sons and partners, plus the aforementioned grandkids.
One noticeable absence at the ceremony: presents. Usually a watch and a trip tailored to the person’s likes (golf, wine tasting) are given. Talking with team personnel afterwards, I learned that a gift is in the works. I’m going to guess a bespoke set of clubs and a trip to one of golf’s meccas. St. Andrews, anyone? The Kings have a history of doing these things first-class. Anyway, the absence was not notable. There was too much love in the room.
