Courtesy Los Angeles Daily News

(August 20, 2010) The story goes that Dan Avey had never seen a hockey game before he talked his way onto the air and partnered up with play-by-play man Jiggs McDonald for Kings' radio and TV broadcasts starting in 1969, the third season of the team's existence.

Maybe because most of Southern Californian had never seen one either - it's on ice, for crying out loud - Avey could pull it off.

But always thinking like a teacher, he had a better idea.

But first: Is the story right?

"I know he'd never been involved in the game or broadcasting hockey," McDonald said from his summer home in Ontario, Canada, when asked about Avey, who died last Sunday at the age of 69 after a five-year battle with cancer.

Adds Bob Miller, the Kings' current Hall of Fame play-by-play man, who teamed with Avey from 1973-'76: "I had heard that story, but I'd have never thought that was the case by the time I started working with him. He was always so knowledgeable and well-prepared. He was a professional broadcaster, and back then, if you were a good salesman, he could have sold himself (for that job)."

Truth be told, Avey actually did a sales job to then-owner Jack Kent Cooke to get the original broadcasting gig.

As a result, the well-rounded, well-respected and well-liked sportscaster, newsman and radio-show co-host in L.A. for 30years who earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 may be best remembered by sports fans here for the seven seasons he spent on the Kings' radio and TV broadcasts. He helped get Southern Californians up to speed explaining blue lines, high sticking and how to pronounce Juha Widing.

For the first two seasons, Avey listened to McDonald work with Ed Fitkin, once a writer for The Globe and Mail in Toronto in the 1930s who became a publicity director for the Maple Leafs in the '40s and '50s, authored several books about hockey and was one of the first TV stars on Hockey Night in Canada in the 1960s.

(Cooke also considered a young Arizona State graduate named Al Michaels for that job, but he ended up helping prepare the team's media guide and drive Coach Red Kelly to Rotary Club speaking engagements).

Avey wasn't impressed with what he heard.

"He wrote to Jack Kent Cooke criticizing Fitkin and finished up by saying: It's one thing to criticize, but another thing entirely to offer a solution," said McDonald, 71, who is semi-retired, but still calling games occasionally for the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders.

"The solution to the problem, to him, was to hire him to do thejob. Mr. Cooke was so impressed with the letter and approach that he called him in for an interview. I was asked to sit in, and Dan was as up front about his lack of hockey knowledge as he could be. But he sold Cooke on the idea of a younger approach, a teaching approach to the color position."

Avey, a resident of Studio City and Sherman Oaks for most of the past couple of decades, relished being a teacher - he became a broadcasting school instructor at both USC and Cal State Northridge.

In the hockey offseason, Avey conducted a series of hockey clinics sponsored by JC Penney's. He also served as NBC-TV's hockey expert in the production of the widely acclaimed "Peter Puck" series for the NHL Game of the Week.

He also worked in the office with season-ticket sales and advertising. He was so good at it, Cooke hired him to do it fulltime, replacing him for the 1970-71 season with Garry Morrell. Sort of.

"Gary didn't last more than a month and Dan was back on the air with me," McDonald said.

Avey then worked with Roy Storey for his only year of play-by-play for the Kings, 1972-73. When Miller was hired (by Chick Hearn), Avey went back to the front office and Jim Minnick was hired as the colorman.

That Miller-Minnick pairing lasted three months. By December, Avey was back in the booth.

While the road travel wasn't family friendly, Avey stayed with Miller for three seasons until he found a stay-at-home job with all-news KFWB-AM in 1976.

As it turned out, Avey is the only man who have worked with every play-by-play man in the franchise's 30-plus-year history.

"It was so easy to rely on someone like Dan when I got here, to really explain how things were done - he was a lifesaver in the booth," said Miller, who hosted a party at his West Hills home a couple of months ago attended by Avey, as Miller celebrated his 50th year in the broadcasting business.

A memorial service for Avey will be held Aug. 27 from 4 to 7p.m. at the Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City.

Expect to hear many more stories, embellished or otherwise, about how much Avey helped lay the groundwork for hockey in Hollywoodland.

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