Sports
Family and hockey were the two greatest passions of Ledger Bruins writer Mike Loftus
For forty years, Mike Loftus told countless, harrowing stories to readers of The Patriot Ledger and the Enterprise.
Since his death on July 21 at the age of 65, after a battle with lung cancer that ended a well-deserved retirement prematurely, endless stories have been told about him.
Stories about his encyclopedic knowledge of hockey, which he put to good use in his most high-profile job as a reporter for the Boston Bruins. Stories about his innate kindness to everyone he met, from the biggest pro sports stars to aspiring journalists fresh out of college (or still in college). Stories about his terribly dry sense of humor.
Stories about his lifelong devotion to his two children, Jamie and Ben.
This is one from the last group.
“Anything you could possibly think of that would be an unreasonable request (he honored),” Jamie Loftus recalled this week. “I was writing an anthropology paper on strip clubs my freshman year of college and didn't realize I wasn't old enough to go to a strip club, so my dad drove me to an 18-and-over night at Club Alex's in Stoughton. When I got there, I was a little nervous, so we just sat at a table and shared a basket of fries. I had to forge the paper. That was a fun one.”
Loftus, a lifelong Brockton resident, was incredibly detailed when it came to his years on the Bruins’ staff. When it came to his kids, nothing escaped his notice. If they needed something tangible (like a ride) or something intangible (like emotional support), he was there first.
“He drove us everywhere because my brother and I are idiots and never got driver's licenses for some reason,” said Jamie, a 31-year-old comedian/writer who lives in Los Angeles. “I used to do radio shows in Boston from 2 to 6 in the morning and he would drive me there and pick me up. He would drive me to terrible comedy shows and stay (to watch my set) and then drive me back whether I did good or not, and he was always cool about it.”
“As a father, he never missed anything,” agreed Ben, a 27-year-old writer who lives in Brooklyn, New York. “For someone as dedicated to his work as he was, he never missed anything my sister or I did, even things we told him he could miss. He wouldn't miss things like me being the third tuba in high school. He had to be there.”
Local flavor
The elder Loftus was certainly there for South Shore hockey fans, showing up at Bruins practices, optional skates, preseason games and playoff showdowns. Fellow writer Mick Colageo, formerly of the New Bedford Standard-Times, Loftus recalls Missing only one Bruins home game, this coincided with Ben's graduation from Emerson College.
Loftus played hockey poorly, to hear him describe it at Brockton High, and made the game his life's work. He took a keen interest in South Shore hockey men, from household names like Charlie Coyle (Weymouth), Brian Boyle (Hingham), Mike O'Connell (Cohasset), Kevin Stevens (Pembroke), Tony Amonte (Hingham), Jeremy Roenick (Marshfield) and Mike Sullivan (Marshfield), to the guys just making a living in the minor leagues.
He wrote about the Bruins, yes, but also about high schools and colleges, and the early days of the women’s game. His 2020 farewell column was essentially a celebration of hockey in the area.
“It wasn't just professional hockey, it was hockey at every level, especially kids from the Patriot Ledger area,” said former freelance sportswriter Matt Kalman. “If there was a kid at any level that came from your area, he was right there with them and knew exactly what they were doing and where they were and he supported them the best he could and tried to support their careers the best he could and promote what they were doing. That always appealed to me. It was funny how he always stood up for his South Shore boys when we were talking hockey.”
Loftus approached his craft in an understated manner, much like his speaking voice.
“Mike was just a nice, decent guy who kept his head down and did his job without fanfare or dumb tweets or hot takes,” said Eric Russo, the Bruins’ senior manager of digital content. “We need a lot more people like him.”
“There's so many hot-take pundits hogging all the attention,” Kalman agreed. “But there's no doubt that if you read a Mike Loftus story about the Bruins, you're definitely going to learn something you didn't know or didn't see in the game. It's unfortunate that he was sometimes overshadowed by people who were louder and more ridiculous.”
Colageo recalled how Loftus treated the Bruins players with respect, noting, “He never lost sight of the fact that the professional athletes he wrote about were people. … You develop relationships with players, not by going out with them and partying in the North End, but in the sense of understanding them as people.”
“He was so professional”
Loftus, who started at the Ledger as a Northeastern co-op student and left briefly in the mid-'80s for a two-year stint with the Patriots media relations department, joined the Bruins beat for the 1988-89 season. He logged plenty of miles on the road before the Ledger pulled the plug on traveling sports reporting in the late '90s. Steve Conroy, the Boston Herald Bruins beat writer, said even that setback showed Loftus' true colors.
“The last couple of years, we (at the Herald) stopped traveling during the regular season for the most part. I know how hard it was for Mike (to give that up) in the beginning,” Conroy said. “As beat guys, you pride yourself on being there, always being in the room, always talking to people. When we stopped traveling, I had to model my job after what Mike did. He was so professional. He could have just thrown his arms up in the air and said, 'Oh, well, I'm not a beat guy anymore,' but he absolutely was.
“He always had a question for the coach that was off the beaten track. He worked for an afternoon paper and always had to have something different (for a story corner) and he always did. It was really great to watch him work and he was so proud of it.”
“A really good person,” said Kevin Paul Dupont, a longtime Boston Globe NHL writer. “A sweetheart, in the best sense of the word.”
Fan club was broadly oriented
It was a comfort for Jamie and Ben Loftus to hear all these people, including the Bruins on their official Twitter/X feed, talk about their father.
“If you knew Dad, he was a very private guy and he was never a big show-off,” Ben said. “He never bragged about all the cool stuff he was doing. It's rewarding to hear all these people reach out to you.”
“When we watched our dad work, you could feel how loved he was,” Jamie said. “But he didn't brag about it. It was cool to see names that I recognized over the years (through social media) and then people that I had never heard of that were influenced by him. It was really fun to see that outpouring.”
Conroy said the other Bruins reporters will have to “put our heads together” to come up with a way to honor Loftus during the 2024-25 NHL season. But in a way, when you watch hockey or play hockey or just think about hockey, you think about him.
Though he played everything from beach volleyball to swimming to Super 8 baseball for the Ledger, sticks, pucks and bluelines were hardwired into his DNA. “He loved it in his bones,” Jamie said with a laugh.
“I was watching a West Coast game at 11 at night,” said Kevin Flanagan of Brockton, who had Loftus as a regular guest on his “Wicked Pissa” Bruins podcast, “and I knew the only other guy in Eastern Massachusetts watching the same game was Mike. And he probably had his notepad with him.”
Visitation will be held at Waitt Funeral Home (850 North Main St., Brockton) on Thursday, July 25 from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM, followed by a memorial service at 7:00 PM. Donations in memory of Mike Loftus may be made to: American Red Cross. His obituary can be found here.
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