TV Host Nick Olczyk: "Hockey's Given Us Everything We Have"
TV Host Nick Olczyk: "Hockey's Given Us Everything We Have"
Much of Chicago's Olczyk hockey clan has migrated west, becoming a prolific presence within the ranks of the Seattle Kraken.
Best known, because of his TV work, is Eddie Olczyk, entering his second season in the Kraken booth. "Edzo" teams with fellow analyst J.T. Brown and play-by-play broadcaster John Forslund.
Eddie misses some Kraken assignments when working U.S. national broadcasts for TNT. Previously, he did the same TV double duty for many years with the Blackhawks and NBC. This followed Olczyk's 1,031-game NHL career for six teams, playing in the 1984 Winter Olympics for Team USA, and a coaching stint with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
One of Eddie's sons, Nick Olczyk, is a studio host on Kraken games. "Any time the Olczyk family gets together," Nick said recently, "hockey comes up at some point. It's in our blood. It's given us everything that we have."
While playing hockey at Colorado College, Nick was asked the person in history he would most like to meet. Moving to Seattle put Nick in closer spiritual proximity to the performer he named, the late Washington State rock musician Kurt Cobain.
Another of Eddie's sons, Eddie Olczyk Jr., works as a Kraken scout.
He spent several years as an assistant coach at Bemidji State, 215 miles north of Minneapolis. "Bemidji is actually the 16th city I’ve lived in for six months or more," Eddie told The Athletic. "With the job I hold there’s no set schedule. You can get a tip on a kid that you’ve got to go watch and you have long hours and you have to be able to move on a whim."
Rounding out the family's Puget Sound hockey dynasty is Eddie's brother, Ricky Olczyk, one of the Kraken's assistant general managers. Rick previously served as assistant GM with both the Edmonton Oilers and Carolina Hurricanes.
"I travel with the team quite a bit, a little bit more than I have in years past," Ricky said on the Arizona Coyotes Podcast. "I get to see other clubs at the NHL level, at the AHL level, and do some amateur scouting." Asked to describe his brother, Ricky replied, "Edzo is an articulate, intelligent guy. Please don't share that with him."
During his hosting of the Signals From The Deep podcast, Nick recalled growing up and playing youth hockey in Chicago. "(Dad) was broadcasting games, both for the Blackhawks at that time, and nationally for NBC, so he wasn't home a lot. But when he was, he would always go out of his way to take me to practice, come to games, and to help coach the team.
"My dad's dad (Ed Olczyk, Sr.) lived 15 minutes away from us. He was always around, too, to take me to practice. We'd always stop at McDonald's on the way home to grab a number nine (chicken nuggets) with a root beer."
In 2021, Nick and Eddie got to broadcast an ECHL game side-by-side. "To be able to work with your father, that really is tough to put into words,” Nick said to the Indianapolis Star.
Around the same time, Eddie Olczyk, who had beaten colon cancer, fell ill during a Blackhawks telecast. Nick was pulled from the Hawks radio booth to finish the game alongside legendary TV voice Pat Foley.
As dad recovered in a Minnesota hospital, Nick filled in for a second game. "Nick provided a positive update on Eddie, then concluded, 'The good news is Pat, you still have an Olczyk, just a little younger and a tad better looking.'" (NBC Sports Chicago)
Eddie joked later that he "changed the locks" after hearing his son's quip. Such good-natured banter is de rigueur for the Olczyk clan, and hockey is usually the catalyst. "I don't know if we've ever had one dinner go by," Nick says, "when there hasn't been something hockey-related that's come up - the trade that just went down, the travel schedule. It's just so ingrained in all of us."