With the sad news that longtime Bruins writer Mike Loftus had passed away this past weekend, Joe Haggerty, the Boston Herald's Steve Conroy and Mick Colageo shared some memories of their longtime friend and colleague.
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SportsTranscript
00:00Welcome to another edition of the Pucks with Hags podcast, powered by PrizePix, the exclusive
00:09daily fantasy partner of the CLNS Media Network. I believe this is the 110th episode of the
00:14Pucks with Hags podcast. I'm your host, Joe Hagerty. You can find my work at joehagerty.substack.com.
00:19Sign up for a premium membership, get all of my NHL and hockey writing sent straight
00:22directly to your inbox via newsletter. I also cover the Bruins for the Boston Sports Journal,
00:28so go to bostonsportsjournal.com and check that all out. Today with me, I have Mick Colaggio,
00:33a longtime friend and colleague, and the Boston Herald's Steve Conroy. Mick, please tell everybody
00:39where they can find your work, my friend.
00:43Sunday columns and bostonhockeynow.com, in-season, home game, live blog, rink wrap, and then
00:53just a variety of things like this. Thanks to Joe and his hospitality, and my pal Pete
00:58Shepard on the radio in Florida, et cetera. I don't know hockey news, seasonal issues.
01:04Talking hockey with friends, that's basically what it comes down to, right, Mick? We love
01:07to have you on, my friend. All right, let's thank our sponsors real quick.
01:11That's what we're doing.
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01:34time.
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01:37this summer. Jaron Duran continues to be red hot right now, even though the Red Sox got
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01:47so go check him out in person.
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02:03game time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, our show today
02:09is going to be a little different.
02:10Hey, Joe, Joe, before you get going, Joe, I have a quick question for you. Does Finn
02:17have the option of a meeting in person with the league and could that be more than a five
02:22game suspension for that welt on your head?
02:27That is not from Finn, actually. I mean, we can use this as a public service announcement.
02:34This was actually a little basal cell carcinoma, a little skin cancer. This is the second time
02:41I've had to have a little bit taken off the skin. It's like, it's the skin cancer you
02:45do want to have. So basically they just take it off and it's gone. Like, it's no risk of
02:50like spreading. It doesn't become deadly or anything like that.
02:52Is his thumb breaking up for anybody else besides me?
02:54Basically they burn a hole in your skin and remove it. And you'll end up with a few stitches.
02:59I was though on the ice with the kids last night, couldn't wear a helmet because of where
03:05the stitches are. So I told all the kids I took a puck off the head during practice,
03:10you know, cause I didn't want to drag them into, you know, dropping the C word on them
03:14when they're 10, 11 years old. But that is, that is what the stitches are from. So everybody
03:19out there, please use sunscreen. They say that like the damage you, when you get skin
03:24cancer, when you're like, you know, 50, like I am, it's actually from sun damage that took
03:30place like 20, 25 years ago. So I'm sure it's one day when I went to good Harbor beach and
03:35had the top down on my Jeep and didn't wear sunscreen and got absolutely torched and sunburned
03:40to crap, uh, that I'm paying the price now by sitting in a dermatologist chair and having
03:44a skin burnt off my face. So kids, when you're in your twenties, when you're in your teens,
03:48when adults, when you're in your twenties, thirties, forties, if you're like me, light
03:52eyes, light skin, Irish use sunscreen, use a hat, wear sunglasses, like do all that stuff
04:00cause you'll end up paying a price a little bit later on in life if you don't. And I'm
04:03a perfect example of that. So use all that stuff. Thank you for bringing that up actually,
04:07cause I'm glad to, you know, tell everybody that and send that message along. Um,
04:11our friend Joey McDonald went through something similar. We're going to do a little bit of a
04:14difference. Yeah, he did. Yep. He had it a few years before I did. My first one was on the
04:22side of my nose, uh, like two years ago. Uh, and so this other one was obviously on the
04:27forehead, but I'm probably going to have to go in every few years to get something like
04:30this done just cause of my light skin, Irish heritage, like all that stuff. It sucks, but
04:35you know, it's part of getting older. Um, and not wearing sunscreen when I should have
04:40and not wearing a hat when I should have all that stuff. All right. So, um, this is going
04:44to be a little bit of a different, uh, episode of the Pucks with Hags podcast. Um, you know,
04:50it's, uh, a little more of a, a sort of a memorial or remembrance, uh, wanted to really
04:55give, uh, our friend and colleague Mike Loftus his due. Uh, he sadly passed away. I think
05:02it was over the weekend, um, or towards the beginning of the week, um, after a battle
05:06with lung cancer, uh, 65 years old, he had retired from the Bruins beat a couple of years
05:11ago, but cover the Bruins for, I think it was over 30 years between 30 and 40 years.
05:16Uh, definitely predated me as, as far as covering the Bruins was the, uh, professional
05:22hockey writers association, Boston chapter chair, uh, for many years as well. Um, was
05:28a presence on the beat, uh, traveled in his earlier in his career, didn't later in his
05:32career, but I think it was, you know, an example to everybody else of how you cover the, uh,
05:37beat, uh, for the Boston Bruins or for anybody else. Um, extremely great sense of humor,
05:43very welcoming to other people have always had advice. If you had a question for him
05:47and, and was a wealth of knowledge. And, you know, I just want to take this episode and,
05:51and obviously Mick and Steve are guys that knew, uh, Mike and we're friends and colleagues
05:55with him, like a long time, like I was just to have some stories, some remembrance of,
06:00of him and talk about him a little bit, cause I think he deserves it. Um, and I enjoy
06:05talking about him cause he was such a good person and such a good writer, uh, for the
06:08Bruins and just an all around, uh, person that you look forward to seeing every day
06:12when you covered practice and covered games. So, you know, Mick, if you want to start,
06:16just, uh, talk a little bit about Mike Loftus and maybe, you know, what you thought when
06:20you heard the news and kind of, you know, where you first met Mike, what your early
06:23remembrances of him are and, you know, just what you thought of him as a person and a
06:27writer.
06:27Yeah. Yeah. Mike was, I think about five years older than me, but we, uh, we kind of had
06:35a connection through music. We, we liked the same music and we realized, you know, years
06:40later that we, we may have been at the same concerts together at the Orpheum and this
06:45and that. And we, we had great fun. And as everybody says, you know, he had a great sense
06:51of humor and it's hard to replicate it because it was so spontaneous. It was so, so
06:57when young blank dry that it's, it's hard to give an example of how funny he was
07:04because it was always the ultimate, you know, you had to be there moment. Um, but
07:09professionally he, um, you know, when, when we stopped traveling about four or five years
07:15ago, you know, it's, it's a shock to the system. And I told this to Eric McHugh, uh,
07:22the other day, and you, you, you really don't know how to approach the job anymore
07:27because you pride yourself on being everywhere with the team. Um, so I had to
07:32model, model my, uh, the way I approached my job, the way Mike did. It's a little bit
07:38different cause Mike, you know, worked for the, uh, the afternoon paper. So he was
07:41always, you know, looking for an off the beat, uh, subject a little bit or something
07:46a little more, um, focused like the, you know, the, the second powerful unit or
07:50whatever, but you know, he, you know, you just have to be there every day, you know,
07:56when the team is there and, uh, you know, he was so professional, like, like Nick
08:02said, he developed good relationships with players without being pally pally with
08:07them. Uh, and you know, he was, he was just a, a dream to work alongside and to
08:13be friends with.
08:14Yeah. Mike was one of those guys more than anybody else that like, he would ask
08:21a question, um, of the coach. And it was obviously like, you're talking about
08:27Steve, like an angle he was working on for a notebook lead or whatever he was
08:30doing. And you'd be like, shit, I didn't notice. I wish I had noticed that. Like
08:35you, you would, you know, you would always, you would learn stuff or be like,
08:38damn, how did I miss that? Uh, based on the questions that Mike asked
08:43consistently, this would happen a lot where you'd be like, wow, he really
08:48noticed that that's he's, he's really studying what he's watching. He just has
08:52a knack for it too, where he just picks up on things really quickly like that.
08:56Uh, changes in patterns, something that's a little different, like a trend,
09:00whatever, like all those things with the Bruins, you would learn very quickly that
09:04he would ask questions that nobody else was sort of thinking or going in a whole
09:08different direction than other people were thinking. And he was kind of
09:11watching on a different level a lot of times, uh, than everybody else. And I
09:15had the ultimate respect for him because of that, you know, you would, and, and
09:18like, oftentimes too, like other people would, would jump on and, and like, you
09:22know, take something from him or share it with him where I think he would get a
09:27little aggravated because it'd be like, I did all the work, I came up with this.
09:30And now all of a sudden it's turned into everybody's notebook.
09:33Yeah. Yeah, it's true.
09:34But he was like so good and so brilliant like that. He had a brilliant hockey
09:39mind. He really did. Um, that I had the ultimate respect for, uh, doing that job.
09:44And I think it also, it earned him tons of points with the coach, with the GM,
09:50with the players. Like, I think they all universally had respect for him. And you
09:55talk about him not being like buddy, buddy with the players. I think he did it
09:58a whole different way. He did it a way where like, he would mention things to
10:02them that maybe they hadn't thought of, or they hadn't noticed or whatever, or,
10:06you know, would, would show like just how much he was like paying attention to
10:10what was going on. And he would earn his respect that way from everybody. And I
10:14think he was universally respected by everyone based on the work he did, the
10:19things that he noticed, the questions he asked, and it all comes down to his mind
10:23and his, his love of hockey and him noticing all these small details.
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11:25minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. I think it's cause he coached the game.
11:30He officiated the game and those things, those experiences, uh, of growing up in
11:36the game really kind of, uh, helped him develop as a journalist, uh, questions
11:43as though he were a coach sitting in the room who is there to watch the game and,
11:48and then come up with the questions we, he and Matt Kalman and I used to sit next
11:53to each other over the Zamboni gate. Um, and prior to the big shift of the media
11:59to the other end of the rink and, um, are we allowed language on this show? I
12:06mean, cause there's an, there's an F-bomb involved. There's an F-bomb involved.
12:12Okay. Okay. All right. So, so if, if Julian in the Claude Julian era, he might
12:21like make some little subtle change in his lines, midway through the third
12:26period of a game and invariably the player that got switched onto a line in
12:33the top six would score a big goal in that game. And Mike would turn, would
12:40slam his pen down onto the table in front of us and turn his head and go
12:46fucking Claude. It was, he just was really, it's, it's a, cause he knew all
12:56the time he didn't miss a trick of what was going on lineup wise. Um, and I
13:01think a lot of the, uh, of our younger core of media have gotten a lot better
13:07at this at, we have more people that are noticing when somebody is not on the
13:12bench, how many forwards there are this and that. And the other thing, Mike was
13:16way ahead of his time when it comes to this stuff. And, and so any little
13:20subtle change that would be made during the game, uh, that would be a well-timed
13:25coaching change and, and he, he would, uh, he would hit it, you know, it's,
13:29it's, uh, it was, it was pretty funny working next to him. I remember how
13:32upset he was when Chicago tied the game, infamously game six, 2013. Um, and, and
13:40how upset he was that the Bruins, uh, had Sharon Seidenberg got on the ice
13:45together for that shift. Why were they out there? He's screaming at me. So, I
13:50mean, I think there's a, I think there's a giant Bruins fan and just about
13:54everybody who, who follows the team, uh, in a professional context. Um, and very
14:00rarely does it surface, uh, in public or, but, but, uh, you know, you get these
14:08little glimpses into the passion and, and the volcano that lies underneath
14:12and he had one himself. Yeah, no doubt. And, and Steve, that's actually, uh,
14:17from, uh, if you haven't checked it out yet, Eric McHugh from the Patriot
14:20ledger did a really nice piece on, uh, on Mike and his career and his legacy.
14:25And, um, one of the quotes was from Steve here. Uh, he always had a question
14:29for a coach that was off the beaten path, working for an afternoon paper.
14:32He always had to have something different for a story angle and he
14:35always did. It was really amazing to watch him work and he took such great
14:38pride in it. And I wholeheartedly agree with, you know, with that observation
14:43and it's like kind of an inside baseball thing maybe where we appreciate
14:46it because we do the job and, you know, understand how challenging it is every
14:50single day, day in, day out to come up with something different like that in
14:54our angle or something, you know, uh, an off the beaten path approach, uh, to
14:59what everybody else does. But Mike consistently did it and he earned the
15:02ultimate respect from everybody because of it. And, you know, really,
15:05when I think of Mike at the end of the day, Steve, I just think of like how
15:09highly respected he was by everybody across the beat, not only for that, but
15:13also the way he treated people from, you know, top to bottom, everybody that
15:18covered the team as well. He treated everybody the same. Yeah. And, you know,
15:23Mike would be great to be somebody new who showed up in the press box and
15:26maybe they were, they were down the other end of the press box and you didn't
15:29get to know him. But if I want to know who it was, I would ask Mike and he
15:34would tell me that person's life story because he took the time to talk to
15:38them. And, you know, he was great that way. And, you know, very, you know,
15:43solicitous of young kids and if they needed any help with anything, he was, he
15:47was great. Um, just a, just a really good hearted person, you know, with a,
15:52with a, you know, a good caustic sense of humor, very under, under, uh, stated,
16:00but caustic sense of humor that, you know, was probably honed in his years of
16:05the punk in the punk clubs. Um, but just a wonderful guy. Yeah. A tremendously
16:11dry sense of humor and like, and he was kind of a soft spoken guy too. So you
16:15would have to listen closely to what he was saying to pick up on it too. And
16:19when you got to know him after a while though, you would listen to what he was
16:22saying something because you knew some kind of funny nugget or something, you
16:25know, something that was going to make you laugh or chuckle was going to come
16:28out of his mouth. Uh, and it was worth like, uh, the straining to listening to
16:32what he was going to have to say or what he was going to say, what was cooking up
16:36inside of his brain and funny story. Like, um, I think my first year in the
16:41PHWA was like, I don't know, 2005, 2006, somewhere in there, 2004. I can't
16:47remember where, what, when it was, but it was in the mid mid aughts. And, uh,
16:52I finally got a PHWA card. He was the chapter chair at the time. And I got the
16:57card. I looked down at it and it said Dan Haggerty on it, who was, uh, if
17:02people don't know, Dan Haggerty was the actor from grizzly Adams, which people
17:06of our generation will remember grizzly Adams. Uh, the younger kids have no
17:10frigging idea whatsoever who grizzly Adams was. But, uh, I used to watch that
17:14and then little house on the Prairie, like I forget it was Sunday night,
17:17Saturday nights, whatever it was. Uh, but I always loved the fact that his
17:20last name was Haggerty spelled the same name as mine was, but I could never, I
17:26never got the truth out of Mike and I could never tell if he did that to be
17:31funny or if he did that like genuinely as a mistake, because he just thought
17:34of Dan Haggerty when he said my name, if somebody screwed it up at the PHWA, if
17:39it was a giant practical joke, I never quite sure knew for sure, but that was
17:43Mike. Like you weren't sure, like sometimes, you know, how much seriousness,
17:47how much humor there was, like where he was coming from with certain things. And
17:50I really liked that about him. But if you guys can think of any instances of
17:54like his sense of humor or something he said or whatever that are stuck in your
17:59mind, that kind of, you know, crystallizes who he was as a person. I
18:02always think of that story when I think of Mike and I think of how funny he was.
18:06He was edgy about laziness. He had very low tolerance for lazy. And so when he
18:16saw it around him, he would not keep it to himself. It would be written all over
18:24his face. He didn't have a great poker face in that regard. There were a couple
18:29of other reporters who covered Bruins home games back in the day, who would
18:35make it a postgame habit to follow Mike into the Bruins locker room, dressing
18:44room, sorry, Canadians, to take advantage of his questions and get those quotes
18:51into their articles. And he knew that those two people are going to be
18:55stampeding him like a bull rush. And so one day, and he told me this, I wasn't
19:02witness to it. But he told me, he says, I got so tired of it, that one day I
19:06decided when I was going into the locker room, and Mike was a fast walker.
19:13He always, always down from, from the ninth floor. That's true. He didn't trust
19:18the elevator. It wasn't fast enough. I thought the siren would go and turn my
19:23head and it'd be gone. So, so anyway, he would go in, he went in there one night
19:31and he just decided to stop short, about 15 feet before he gets where he's going.
19:37And they ran him right over. It was like a rear, multiple car rear ender, you
19:41know, collision. And it was a dangerous thing to do, considering the size of one
19:47of those two guys. But they, you know, we had some reporters, veteran reporters
19:52from the mid and west in the state that just, you know, they were like on the
20:00every night they wanted to make sure they got to him so they could get the
20:03quotes off of his questions. And he just, that pissed him off. Not because he
20:10considered his questions, it's not that he considered his questions proprietary
20:15information. It's not that. He understands it was a free for all. The
20:20problem was, is that they didn't do any of their own work. They were just
20:24leeching off of his, that that's what got him. So he might get a real kind of
20:30a sense of we're here to work. That's what we do. And everybody should be
20:34doing it. And if you were, then he really liked you.
20:39Absolutely. Steve, anything you think of when you think of Mike's sense of humor
20:44and, you know, kind of like what what he brought to the table on a consistent
20:48basis?
20:51I don't know, this is a goofy thing. But I just remember when they started
20:56playing Private Eyes by Holland Oates. I don't know what when they played it
21:01during the game, but he would always do the clapping.
21:07Always cause Heidi, Heidi Holland, who, you know, ran the press box forever to
21:13give them a walk down. I don't know why that sticks in my head. I always got to
21:21check a lot of that.
21:22And then when they started playing Holland Oates, you'd be looking forward to
21:25the interplay between Loftus and Heidi. You can set your watch to it. That's
21:30that's pretty awesome.
21:31That's the thing. And, and then in more recent years, they started playing
21:36Stooges song there, I want to be a dog. And anytime that music would start
21:41before the face off, and he would get mad because because why don't they ever
21:49play the whole song? I always do this.
21:53They love that he loves the Stooges.
21:55Yeah, well, I mean, there's definitely pet peeves with what the Bruins do for
21:59music, right? Like I def I have a pet peeve about when they play, you know,
22:05during the playoffs now when they have the Bruins banner that goes around, and
22:09they start playing ACDC. And and but they immediately they they've shortened
22:14it to like 20 seconds or whatever it is of ACDC and then they cut out and go to
22:18some like dance tune that's like total like, you know, total buzzkill from from
22:24the ACDC when the the Bruins banner is being passed around the lower bowl where
22:29they used to just let it play out the entire time. I don't know who made that
22:33executive decision. But they do that too. Like that. I think we all have our
22:37commercially like music takes on what they do with the garden and the way they
22:41play the music sometimes. But I think that's definitely I mean, that speaks to
22:45you know, with loft this. He was a guy that not only was crazy about hockey and
22:50loved hockey, but he had other interests. He loved music. He loved, you know,
22:53stand up comedy. There's a lot of different things he was into. It was
22:58kind of a renaissance man like that. And, you know, it definitely got passed to
23:02his kids, Jamie and Ben. And Jamie, very successful stand up comedian. And,
23:08you know, we'd hear a lot of, you know, stories from him about his kids. And,
23:14you know, and I mentioned something in Twitter when I tweeted something out
23:17about Mike's passing that like, he was endlessly proud of Jamie and Ben and he
23:21would talk about them a lot and the kind of misadventures he would have with
23:24them. And you could just tell daily talking to him how much he loved his
23:28kids and how proud he was of them. And you can tell it in the outpouring of
23:32love from them, too, with his passing and some of the things that they've
23:35written and said. And I thought this was pretty funny. There were some funny
23:38stories in that article from Eric McHugh, like, you know, Mike taking his
23:42daughter, Jamie, to a strip joint for an anthropology paper that she was
23:45writing that was 18 plus when she was in high school. That was pretty funny.
23:49Can you imagine? But I know his son, Ben, said as a father, he never missed
23:55anything for someone who was so dedicated to his work like he was. He
23:58never missed anything that my sister had going on or I had going on, even
24:02stuff that we told him he could miss. He wouldn't miss stuff like me being
24:05third chair tuba in high school. He had to be there. That's from Eric McHugh's
24:09story as well. And like, you could just tell, like talking to him and the way
24:14that he talked about his two kids, how much he loved them, how proud he was of
24:18them and just how they were his whole world, you know, and I really looked
24:21forward. And now having kids, too, like and I know I talk about them a lot in
24:26that way, too. You know, I just had a lot of admiration for him as a dad, how
24:32much he cared about his kids and how proud he was of them. And, you know,
24:35that was something I enjoyed as I got older and had my own kids, just seeing
24:38him as that kind of guy. And you always appreciate, I think, people that, you
24:42know, that talk about their kids with that kind of pride and love.
24:46Yeah, I always remember him, you know, him coming in with, you know, a little
24:52tired in the morning because he had driven and picked up, you know, Jamie
24:56from her overnight DJ shift for the Emerson station there. But yeah, I mean,
25:02he obviously and don't get me wrong, he complained about it, but you know, he
25:07loved doing it. Of course. But, you know, he was you can tell that that was such a
25:14huge part of his life. Yeah, I mean, Mick, you know, it was absolutely in
25:18fact, he had opinions about
25:22no, he had opinions about rock stars that she would get to interview through
25:26that gig. And sometimes they were rude. And he'd say, Yeah, I really liked the
25:32music. But he was rude to Jamie when they had him had her on at the Emerson
25:36station. And, you know, I didn't care for that, you know. But, you know, it's
25:42funny how he would be and have such such hard opinions about certain things like
25:47our colleague Chris Hurley, his favorite band of all time is cheap trick. Well,
25:53Mike always was ready with the opinion that their first two albums were great.
25:57After that they fell off, you know, so that makes me because I my respect for
26:02Mike, it's been on my list of things to do to make sure I get the first two
26:07cheap trick albums. So I stopped just knowing them by the songs that made it
26:12into the YouTube sphere, you know, so or the radio before that.
26:19Any any memories on the beat with him that you guys can think of as far as,
26:25you know, a place he likes to go, you know, back in the old days when we had
26:30the morning skate and then the games both at the garden or, you know, just
26:35anything like that, that you can think of times working alongside. I got one.
26:39Go ahead. I got I got one. Remember the early days of the Fleet Center? I know
26:45this is making us all feel old to call the early days of the Fleet Center. But
26:50once in a while, and I did this too, you could readily park in there all day
26:55long before the game day charge would take effect. And and after game day, if
27:04you went out for lunch, if or if we went for a skate at Stariti, you know,
27:09Joey McDonald got us some ice there once a few times and I'd go there and take a
27:14nap, you know, put the seat all the way back. Well, Mike told me he did this
27:19once and put his seat all the way back and was having a good snooze in the
27:24dark garage. And suddenly the one knocks on his door, waking him up out of a
27:30sound sleep, and it was security guards thought he was dead. He couldn't even
27:38couldn't even catch a wink. He probably had to get Jamie that morning, you know,
27:42so but anyway, that's that would happen to him.
27:48Yeah, yeah. That's a pure laughter story right there. Steve, anything you think
27:53of, of just memories with him, working alongside him for so long?
27:57Ah, let me think. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, he wouldn't get into crap fights
28:05with with with coaches usually, but he would like ask questions that would force
28:09them to think sometimes sometimes when they didn't really want to. Yeah. And I
28:13remember, I remember Claude says, Well, you know, you got I don't even know what
28:19the question was. It was, you know, the hindsight is 2020. Yeah, Mike. Yeah. So
28:25like a month, you know, I called Mike, Mr. 2020.
28:34But like, you know, and this is true. Like, I agree with you guys. I think you
28:39said it, Mick. Oh, having coached hockey for the last like five or six years with
28:44Finn playing, you do look at things completely differently. And you view the
28:48game in a totally different way. And you do come up with different kinds of
28:52questions. Are there different things you're watching and paying attention to
28:55different things you're putting importance on, that all of a sudden, you
28:58see it from a different perspective, and you start asking different questions.
29:02You know, and not just, you know, because like, that's what fans want to
29:06know, not because like, that's going to get a reaction, not because of any other
29:10reason, then you're just observing something in the game. And you're like,
29:13why did they do that? Like, I need an explanation of that. Or why is this
29:16going on? Or what? You know, why? Why wasn't this happening? But yeah, you
29:21know, to your point, Steve, like, I still remember asking Claude why Brad
29:26Martian wasn't on the top power play unit when he was like the leading goal
29:29scorer on the team, getting the red ass from him for that day in a good week or
29:33two afterwards, because I had the audacity to ask a question like that was
29:37pretty normal. But, but Loftus would ask those kind of questions all the time.
29:42And just from a knowledge perspective, or just from wanting to know, you know,
29:45get the answer, you know, he was always a guy that wanted an explanation for
29:49things that he was seeing on the ice.
29:53And he always had, like, you know, he always let everybody, you know, ask the
29:58obvious questions, you know, it would be almost like at the end of the press
30:02conference, when they go, anybody, anything else? It was like, Columbo, you
30:07know, I got one more.
30:10I was just gonna say, that's exactly like Columbo. One more question before I
30:14go. Hit him with the haymaker right before you leave the press conference.
30:20Totally true. And you're right, he would let the press conferences breathe, he
30:23would let everybody ask the injury updates, the you know, you know, is a guy
30:28taking an option for the practice, like all that obvious stuff would get out of
30:32the way first before he would, you know, dig in with, you know, a guy that scored
30:36one power play goal in the last 20 games, and why is he still out there or
30:40whatever? Whatever he would see on the ice and want to ask about. Just before
30:46we go, just real quickly, Mick, you first, just what do you think Loftus'
30:53legacy as a beat writer, as a friend, as a colleague is, you know, when you think
30:57about him now, you think the life that he lived, you think how much time that we
31:00spent with him, what do you think his kind of legacy is, now that he's passed
31:04at 65 years old?
31:06He never forgot that the professional athletes or the managers, coaches, that
31:15these are people that never lost sight of that on the job. I can't say that the
31:20same, you know, I feel like I'm better than I was 10 years ago, and at 10 years
31:25ago, I was better than I was 10 years before that. But I don't remember any
31:31time where Mike wasn't a great model for me in terms of showing me that and
31:38reminding me of that, and so that I would never get, especially in this social
31:44media age, where the low-hanging fruit is to denigrate people, to make a joke,
31:51look at me, follow my thing, because I'm funny here, I shamed somebody, you know,
31:58that was never in Mike's playbook. It just wasn't part of his fabric, and if he
32:04had a feeling about something that was negative, he was so professional, he
32:09didn't let it bleed into his copy. And that, to me, is something that I've taken
32:15as a teaching tool. So in that way, he mentored me.
32:19Yeah, and I agree. I mean, I think that's the example he set for everybody. I
32:24would say the same thing, and I would say, like, I'm not, I'm guilty of that
32:27sometimes, too, of not being able to, especially when I was younger. Like, as
32:31I've gotten older, I think my perspective has changed as I've gotten older and
32:35coached and had a kid that plays, and, you know, kind of realized that all of
32:40these guys were once 10, 9, 10-year-old kids that just were playing because they
32:45loved hockey and were the same exact as my son. I think my perspective has
32:49changed, too, on, you know, not, you know, not harping so much on mistakes that
32:55they made, not, you know, trying to ask in a way that, you know, isn't going to
33:00embarrass them or isn't going to, like, put them in a box, you know, and asking
33:04in a way that, like, of curiosity of, like, why did you do this here? Or, you
33:09know, putting in a way that's not quite so adversarial or disrespectful. I think
33:13I've definitely learned that over the years. And, you know, treat it a little
33:18bit differently and treat them more like, you know, just people that are getting up
33:21every day like the rest of us and doing their job and realizing that everybody's
33:25in the same, you know, position as far as that goes. Steve, anything you can think
33:30of, or what do you think Mike Loftus's legacy will be as a writer, as a person?
33:36Yeah, you know, as a writer, it's just, you know, the tireless professionalism
33:42and the patience to do the nitty gritty work that it takes to be a beat guy. He,
33:49you know, was never in for, you know, you know, as Mick said, to, you know, for people
33:53to look at him, you know, he was, he was, you know, giving you information and he was
33:59telling you, you know, what he saw and analyzing it and doing it in a, I don't
34:03want to say self-effacing way, but just a way that didn't draw attention to him,
34:08but draw attention, drew attention to the subject he was writing about.
34:12And as a person, it's, you know, it's obviously, you know, his children, his family,
34:17and, you know, the, you know, the pride that he had in them. And, you know, and it's
34:22obvious in the love that, that we've seen in, in return, you know, in these past few
34:27days, you know, from Jamie and Ben.
34:30I agree. And, you know, I gotta say, like, Mike retired from the beat right around the
34:36end of COVID when things went back from Zoom to in-person, that's basically when he
34:41retired from the Patriot Ledger, wasn't on the beat anymore.
34:45Wholly and completely missed his presence. And it took a few years, it took at least a
34:50year, maybe two years to adjust to him not being there anymore. And like his presence,
34:54the questions he would ask, the things you could count on him for, or knew that he was
34:59going to do, like, cause a lot of times people don't realize this, but there is like
35:03sort of a, a bio rhythm to all the different personalities and people that cover the team.
35:07And when you've been together for a while, there's sort of like a rhythm to the questions
35:11you're asked, the scrums, like the sort of working in tandem, everybody, even if we're
35:16also sort of adversarial in a way, or like going, you know, for, to break stories or
35:20whatever, there's a certain rhythm to it. And I think Mike was a huge part of that for
35:24the, you know, 20 years that I've covered the team. And certainly more than that for
35:29all the time that he covered the team, his dry humor, his brilliance, his hardworking
35:33diligence, his detail, being detail oriented with watching the game the, the welcoming
35:39hand and putting an arm around somebody's shoulder when they were new to the beat and
35:43coming on the knowledge that he would bring, you know, the, just the levity on a day-to-day
35:48basis too, with the dry humor and the caustic width that he had all that stuff was missed
35:52when he retired. And, you know, it's certainly obviously going to be missed in a much different
35:58way now that he's passed away at 65 years old, but thank you, Mick. Thank you, Steve,
36:03for joining me today to talk about Mike Loftus. I think this was a great episode and it was
36:08a really nice tribute to him and I'm glad we were able to do it. I also want to thank
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36:50today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Mick, Steve, thank you very much for joining us
36:54today. Thank you. You got it. Everybody else out there, thank you for listening. We'll see you at
36:59the rink.