RIP Dan Avey

From LARadio.com


http://www.laradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=679:dan-avey-dies&catid=14:lead-stories#comments


(August 15, 2010) Dan Avey passed away this afternoon at Cedars Sinai Hospital. The former voice of the Los Angeles Kings, KFWB anchor for decades, professor at USC and Cal State Northridge, recipient of over 15 Golden Mikes, co-host of the KABC morning show with Ken Minyard, and a recipient of a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, died quietly with his family at his bedside shortly after noon today. He was 69.



He was the commentator on Kings broadcasts with play-by-play man Bob Miller when I was a rookie hockey writer in the 1970s.
The first story that popped into my mind was a playoff series against Boston. The Kings had beaten Atlanta in the first round and started the second round in Boston. They won Game 2 on an overtime goal by Butch Goring to take the home-ice advantage.
So everybody was a little giddy on the flight home. Soon, food started being thrown around the cabin, a genuine food fight in the coach section of a commercial flight. Somebody took a piece of chocolate cake and smeared it right down the front of Avey's shirt. Yes, a big, brown stain. He didn't care, everybody was having fun.
When the plane arrived, there was a crowd of fans and TV crews waiting. First member of the Kings traveling party to depart the plane was Dan Avey in his shit-(cake)stained shirt.

 

R.I.P. Mr. Avey.

Good story, SoCalDude. I would imagine you have some good Jack Kent Cooke tales as well.

I've always been fascinated by those early Kings teams. Jiggs McDonald once told me he thought he got the Kings' broadcasting gig out of the chute because he was, "willing to do it for the least amount of money."

 

Pretty sure that's timeless.

As entertaining as SoCalDude's story was, I also found it interesting that the Kings played two east coast teams before the Stanley Cup Finals. How was the NHL aligned back then so that Los Angeles had to visit Atlanta and Boston?

 

In that era the NHL's divisions weren't aligned geographically and all the playoff matchups were determined by points. There were no divisions or conferences involved in the matchups.

Here's a link to the explanation: http://www.nhl.com/cup/formats.html

 

Cooke was already holed up in Vegas when I came aboard. He was trying to protect his assets from his wife during their divorce. I think I saw him once. He was in the hallway connecting the team offices with the press lounge and he was yelling at Don Merry, the L.A. Times beat guy.
Cheap was his MO. After Avey left, he was replaced by Rich Marotta, who also had to double up as traveling secretary in addition to the radio work.