Longtime L.A. Kings broadcaster Nick Nickson embracing final playoffs before retirement

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In 1981, Nick Nickson embarked on a professional endeavor that took him far from his native Rochester, N.Y. At just 27 years of age, the former disc jockey and broadcaster for his alma mater, Ithaca College, traveled across the country and holed up at the Airport Park Hotel, across the street from the Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

That’s how he started his association with the Los Angeles Kings, with whom his voice would become synonymous. La-La Land, as he jokingly refers to the metropolis he’s long called home, was foreign to him then. Until this job with the Kings came up, he had never been west of Ohio.

“I packed two big suitcases of clothes,” Nickson recalled recently. “Left my wife and newborn back east till I got settled. A couple nights after I was in L.A., I walked over and met Bob Miller for the first time. I had never heard him. I had never met him. And he’s got a new partner with the L.A. Kings.”

Miller is Kings royalty. The legendary play-by-play man sits on the broadcasting Mount Rushmore in Los Angeles, for decades operating as hockey’s equivalent to Vin Scully of the Dodgers, Chick Hearn of the Lakers and Ralph Lawler of the Clippers. And Nickson, with his thick black mustache, was Miller’s trusty sidekick as his color commentator for Kings radio and television broadcasts.

The hotel and adjacent Hollywood Park racetrack have long been razed, with SoFi Stadium now on their former grounds. The Kings long ago moved downtown to what’s now Crypto.com Arena. And Nickson’s mustache became history many years ago. But that voice, still fresh and vibrant on their broadcasts, has lasted.

Those days are ending. At the start of this, his 44th season, Nickson and the club let it be known that it would be his final year. His finale will be whenever the Kings are eliminated in these Stanley Cup playoffs — or hoist the silver chalice for a third time with him on the microphone. The plan is for him to shift to radio if the Kings advance past the Edmonton Oilers in this opening round, as his TV work on the regional FanDuel Sports Network will end when games are exclusively national broadcasts.

Listening to him, Nickson hasn’t lost his fastball. It is conceivable that he could do many more years, even after 50 years in the industry, which started with doing play-by-play for the American Hockey League’s Rochester Americans and New Haven Nighthawks. “I still love doing the games,” he said. “I’m 71 now. I feel like I could do it forever.”

But it’s time. Fifty is a nice round number to go out on, and 44 represents symmetry, as Miller was the Kings’ lead broadcaster for that long. Nickson is leaving on his terms after Kings president Luc Robitaille asked him to move back onto the TV side for two years, following their decision to sever ties with Alex Faust, Miller’s successor.

It is time for Nickson to indulge more in his other passions. Traveling with his wife, Carolyn. Hitting drives on the golf course. Spending time with his grandchildren. But even though preparation has defined his distinguished career, Nickson hasn’t thought a lot about what he might say on his final broadcast.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something sitting at my desk,” he said. “My mindset when I was thinking of what to say when we won the two Cups was (to) make it short and sweet, so you don’t mess it up.”

“Ten seconds left. Puck behind the Kings’ net centered by Parise. The long wait is over. After 45 years, the Kings can wear their crown. The Los Angeles Kings have won the Stanley Cup!”

After 44 seasons and two Stanley Cup championships, the longtime Kings announcer will hang up his headset. (Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)

The Kings’ triumph in 2012 came out of nowhere, in a sense. That team had gone through a midseason coaching change and needed a late 12-4-3 push to lock down a playoff spot, clinching in the next-to-last game of the regular season and, at the very end, falling from a possible division championship to the eighth and final seed in the Western Conference.

But a five-game win over the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks and a sweep of the St. Louis Blues in the second round suddenly had the Kings thinking a title run was possible. Momentum was building and Nickson let his mind go to work if that moment came to be.

“We were doing Game 1 against the Coyotes in Arizona because they had home ice,” Nickson said. “And after the first or second period, we were getting up to take a break. Chris Cuthbert was covering that series for (Canadian television). He turns to me and says, ‘Nick, have you worked on what you’re going to say when you win the Cup?’ And I said, ‘Jeez, Chris, this third round has just started. We still got a ways to go.’

“Well, as it turned out, the Kings took care of Arizona in five games and, gosh, it’s looking like this might happen. That’s when my thought process started.”

Against the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup Final, consecutive overtime winners by Anže Kopitar and Jeff Carter had the Kings coming home to Los Angeles with a 2-0 lead. Nickson began to think of the right words.

“That’s how I came up with the Kings can finally wear their crown,” he said. “I wasn’t going to, but the way it unfolds, the long wait is over. I put that in before I said anything. And the way that the game wound down with the puck in the Kings’ end, we’re counting it down. The fans are counting it down in the background. And as soon as I say the Kings win the Stanley Cup, the buzzer goes off. The timing there was right on. I was thankful that it all kind of fell into place.”

“Now the puck behind the net, centered by Brassard. Cleared away by the Kings. Picked up by Martinez. Martinez to Clifford, feeds it right side. Toffoli with a shot, save, rebound, scoorrre! Alec Martinez has won the Stanley Cup for the Los Angeles Kings!

“Alec Martinez on the rebound! And royalty reigns again in the NHL! The Kings have won their second Stanley Cup in three years!”

It was very different for Nickson two years later. The Kings’ Game 6 blowout of New Jersey in 2012 allowed him plenty of time to get his thoughts together as he called the action. But even though they held a 3-1 series lead over the New York Rangers in the 2014 Cup Final, Game 5 moved into double overtime.

The Rangers were facing possible elimination, but the outcome of the game was uncertain. That didn’t keep Nickson from being ready for the moment whenever it came. Preparation is everything for him.

“I think a lot of us felt that the two best teams that year were the Kings and Chicago,” he said. “One of us had to get knocked out in the conference final — it was Chicago obviously. So, OK, the Kings might win again. What do I want to say?

“I remember looking at a Kings program on my desk and the program was called the Royal Reign. And I said, ‘Royalty reigns again.’ I thought it’d be kind of neat to say if they do it again.”

Daryl Evans has worked with Nickson since 1999, with the two as partners on radio for 24 seasons. Nickson’s genuine enthusiasm is why Evans, who now does ice-level work on the FanDuel broadcasts, believes his work stands comfortably beside Miller and the other Southern California announcing titans because of his consistency through the decades.

“You listen to the way he called the Stanley Cup championships,” said Evans, who played in 113 NHL games and is forever known for his 1982 “Miracle on Manchester” game-winning goal. “I remember just being beside him and the passion that he had. Not being a player and to hear that excitement. And I think the fans pick up on that.

“There’s a happy medium there. You don’t want to get overly involved and engaged like that. But I think he had a unique way of finding the right amount to be able to transfer over to the people. And they sensed it, that they were there and were part of it.”

Born in Edmonton and raised in Whitehorse, Randy Hahn got back to his love for hockey when Rich Marotta — a longtime, well-known sportscaster in SoCal — pursued a larger role in boxing calling fights. Hahn was working with the San Diego Sockers of the Major Indoor Soccer League when he got a job as part of the Kings’ telecasts on the Prime Ticket network.

Now the longtime play-by-play voice of the San Jose Sharks, Hahn is forever grateful to Nickson and Miller. The two insisted that he sit with them on the team buses and charter flights. There were dinners together on the road. They told him what was necessary to better inform the viewers. “Those guys literally took me under their wing, both of them, and taught me the ropes and taught me how to be a pro,” Hahn said.

Hahn said Nickson’s generous nature stands out. And his humility. He’ll never forget how Nickson graciously excelled in the color role beside Miller, even though he was a play-by-play man at heart.

“I saw his preparation in a different way than you prepare for play-by-play because it is a very different role,” Hahn said. “But clearly a professional who, through his actions, I learned what it took. You got to go to the morning skate. You got to ask questions. You got to find out information. You got to talk to the players. You have to develop a trust so that when they talk to you, they know what you’re not spreading things in places that you shouldn’t and keeping some things to yourself. Learning the things that go on in an organization when you’re allowed on a plane, that remain internal and things like that.

“All those things that I had not known before were taught to me by Nick and Bob.”

In 2015, Nickson joined Miller and Jiggs McDonald as Kings broadcasters who have been recipients of the Foster Hewitt Award and are recognized at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. He isn’t resting on his laurels. Nickson has stayed current.

When burgeoning young center Quinton Byfield had a six-game goal streak in March, Nickson incorporated Byfield’s “Boom” celebration that originated from social media personalities A.J. and Big Justice, also known on TikTok and YouTube as the “Costco Guys.”

BOOM x5

Quinton Byfield adds another quick goal to the Los Angeles tally, pushing the Kings lead to 3!#GoKingsGo pic.twitter.com/fz19xaoI7q

— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) March 14, 2025

To Evans, that shows how Nickson can be clever and remain as relatable as he was during postgame talk shows with callers for many seasons. “The fans ate it up and the players themselves ate it up,” he said. “It was great.”

“I think with the more experience you gain, you learn to use your surroundings to make what you do more profound, more enjoyable,” Nickson said. “And I like to think I’ve done that over the years on radio. But obviously when you’re on TV, especially in our market, you have more exposure than you do on radio. That’s just the way it is in Southern California with our sport.

“It’s having fun. It’s enjoying it. It’s knowing what’s surrounding you. Try to make it a little different and add a little spice to it. Make it not like every other game, I guess you could say.”

Joe Micheletti knows what it’s like to call games beside a legend. A longtime hockey analyst for multiple teams and networks, Micheletti most recently has worked alongside the now-retired Sam Rosen of the New York Rangers. He’s long known Nickson and admired his versatility while calling him “one of the nicest people in our business.”

“It’s not easy,” Micheletti said. “He was good enough in his own right and comfortable enough in his own right, where he just said I’m going to keep doing what I do. And Bob was Bob. Great. Great person. So connected here in this area. Nick just stepped in and didn’t try to be Bob. Didn’t try to be anybody else. Just was Nick, which is all he needed to be.

“That’s all he needed to be because he was great while Bob was still working and he’s still great. He didn’t need to do anything different.”

After four decades and more with the Kings, Nickson has decided that it’s been long enough. He remembers that very first broadcast vividly, a Nov. 18, 1981, game at the Forum when Marcel Dionne torched his former Detroit Red Wings. Life beyond hockey is on the radar, but he’s having a blast with this final season, with his beloved Kings back in the spotlight of the postseason.

“He might be kind of personally sensing that it’s the end and maybe subconsciously just putting a little bit more into it,” Evans said. “Just enjoying it or maybe taking it in every moment. And maybe it’s just something that translates and you hear it in his voice.”

(Top photo: Keith Birmingham / MediaNews Group / Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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