Don’t think of this as Nick Nickson’s final season behind the microphone for the Kings. Think of it as an encore.
Nickson planned to be golfing by now. He planned to be following his grandkids, Casey and Avery, to their games and attending the birthday parties and anniversaries he had to miss in more than five decades as a hockey broadcaster.
The Kings had other plans, summoning Nickson to a meeting in the summer of 2023 where he worried he might be fired before he could tell them he was ready to retire. Instead the Kings told Nickson, their longtime radio voice, they wanted him to simulcast the radio and TV calls. And they wanted a two-year commitment.
“Had it not been for the change, last year might have been my last,” he said.
The fact it wasn’t makes this season positively, absolutely the last one. (We think.) At 71, Nickson says he has too much he wants to do and not nearly enough time between games in which to do it, so his career will end when the Kings’ season does.
“I’m doing this on my own terms, which I’m grateful for,” he said during an hourlong lunch that was heavy on remembrances and void of regrets. “Some people around the league said ‘Nick why? You still sound so good.’ And yeah I appreciate that.
“But I want to be able to enjoy doing what I want while I’m still healthy. The timing is right.”
The Kings will honor Nickson when they play host to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday, a tribute he believes will be heartfelt even though it’s April Fool’s Day.
“I thought of that when they mentioned April 1st, ” Nickson said. “But because so many people are preparing for it, I don’t think it’s going to be a joke. I think it will actually happen.”
In his 44 seasons with the Kings, Nickson says he has called more than 3,800 games while narrating the rise of hockey in a desert. He watched the Triple Crown line of Charlie Simmer, Marcel Dionne and Dave Taylor; welcomed Wayne Gretzky to L.A.; and saw Jim Fox, Daryl Evans and Jarret Stoll move from the ice into the broadcast booth.
Two other players, Luc Robitaille and Rob Blake, went from Nickson’s broadcasts into the Kings’ front office as president and general manager, respectively.
“For the culture of a franchise to have people that have been around a long time, it means a lot,” said Robitaille, now Nickson’s boss. “You have your core fans that follow the team and when they’ve been listening to Nick Nickson for all these years they’re part of the family. It’s hard to describe.
“Everybody grew up listening to them and then next thing you know, they get married and they have kids, and they’re still listening. I hear those stories over and over.”
That’s because Nickson described more than just hockey. He did the play-by-play of history, calling the Kings’ two Stanley Cup championships. His radio call of the final six seconds of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final is arguably the franchise’s most memorable moment.
“The long wait is over! After 45 years, the Kings can wear their crown!”
Nickson’s Hall of Fame career — he became the third Kings broadcaster, after Bob Miller and Jiggs McDonald, to be enshrined when he was voted in by his peers in 2015 — began with the minor league Rochester Americans a year after he graduated from Ithaca College, where he served as sports director for the school’s radio station. Two years later he began calling games for the New Haven Nighthawks, the New York Rangers’ AHL affiliate.
That’s where he got the break that changed his life. The Rangers, who had a player-development agreement with the Nighthawks, briefly ended the relationship in 1981 and the Kings, who were looking for an AHL partner, moved in. The Kings needed more than just a minor league affiliate, however.
Pete Weber had left his seat next to Miller, creating an opening in the broadcast booth. Kings coach Parker MacDonald knew Nickson from his time in New Haven, and though MacDonald wouldn’t last the season behind the bench, he was there long enough to push Nickson for the job.
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“So we hired him,” Miller said.
With the move West, Nickson joined perhaps the most storied and iconic group of sports broadcasters ever assembled in one city. In addition to Miller, Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrín were calling Dodgers games, Chick Hearn was doing the Lakers, Tom Kelly was on USC football and Ralph Lawler soon moved north from San Diego with the Clippers.
All six are Hall of Famers. Yet Nickson, the youngest of the group at 27, fit in immediately.
“He was just great to be around,” Miller said. “Nick was always so well prepared. Great player identification. Kept up with the play, all the fundamentals.”
But the key to his success and that of the other Hall of Famers was stability, Nickson said. Scully and Jarrín both spent more than six decades with the Dodgers. Hearn and Lawler did 41 seasons with Lakers and Clippers, respectively. Nickson, meanwhile, is retiring after 44 seasons with the Kings, the same as Miller, who retired in 2017.
“It’s unusual that a broadcaster stays with one team for a number of years. The era of broadcasters sticking with one team for 40, 50 years is probably gone,” said Nickson, whose time with the Kings was measured in a series of short-term contracts that were always renewed. “You have that connection. It’s just a comfort level.”
“What we’ve had to offer and how we’re presented the game, I think it has educated [people] into being a more appreciative hockey fan,” he added. “That only is natural if you’re in that space for that long.”
As a result, giving up the job — and the game — after five decades won’t be easy. Just ask Miller, who was at a Kings game last weekend shortly after surgery for an aneurysm.
“You know, I still miss doing play-by-play,” he said. “There are certain games I’ll be watching on TV and my wife will say, ‘Do you miss that?’ I don’t miss preparation these days, with players changing teams and so many teams. But there are times I’d watch the game and say, ‘Yeah, I’d like to be doing the play-by-play.’”
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As for Nickson, “well, he’s a golfer,” Miller said. “He’s got grandkids. So I don’t think he’ll have any problem getting used to it.”
Nickson has one confession he’d like to make before signing off the final time, though. That memorable call at the end of the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs? He worked on that ahead of time.
The Kings were so dominant that spring, Nickson was confident they would win before the final series with the New Jersey Devils even started.
“That’s when I came up with what I eventually said,” he remembered.
But the genius wasn’t in the words, it was in the timing, with Nickson pronouncing the word “crown” as the final horn sounded.
He’s had nearly two seasons now to think about how he’ll end the final broadcast of his 44-year career, one that draws closer with every passing game.
“Maybe,” he finally offered, “I should that say ‘After 44 years the long wait is over.’”
Give that man his crown.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
