The Lost Dream

Michael Sage Danton was born in Brampton, Ontario on October 21, 1980. He is the son of Mike and Sue Jefferson. The name printed on his birth certificate is Michael Stephen Jefferson; however, following his estrangement from his family, he changed his name to Danton.

For many years, Steve Simmons has followed Danton’s career. He has interviewed virtually everyone in Danton’s life, and spent countless hours researching his latest book, The Lost Dream. Simmons is a columnist with the Toronto Sun, and appears regularly on the Sunday morning talk show The Reporters. He does not shy away from controversy.

The subtitle of Simmons’s book: “The Story of Mike Danton, David Frost, and a Broken Canadian Family.” The book contains all the ingredients of a nasty adventure— sex, drugs, booze, deceit, greed, love, hatred, and a controlling villain in the person of David Frost.

Simmons breaks the book into 15 chapters. It covers the life of the Jefferson family, and the involvement of Frost. Many local hockey fans will recognize the name. Frost took over the hockey responsibilities of several young players, and several of them played in Wellington, either as Dukes, or as members of the Quinte Hawks during the days of the “outlaw league,” the Metro Junior Hockey League in 1996- 1997.

There were a few trademarks that observers noticed regarding the players recruited by Frost. They either played according to his edicts, or they were gone. Frost brought several players to the Quinte Hawks, took over the coaching responsibilities, and controlled their lives from Room 22 of the Bay View Inn. Much of the activity in that Inn was exposed in a Napanee courtroom in 2006.

According to Simmons, the Crown botched the case, and Frost was acquitted of all charges in the sordid affair. But it was another opportunity for Canadians to peer into the window of the life of David Frost.

Frost is referred to as “Svengali,” a manipulative fictional character. He certainly had a powerful influence on the life of a young Mike Danton, and undoubtedly contributed to his rise in the hockey world to the National Hockey League.

Danton played four years of junior hockey for seven different teams. Many of the moves between teams were orchestrated by Frost, in his attempts to keep a group of players together. Following his NHL career with the New Jersey Devils and the St. Louis Blues, Danton served five years in an American prison for the attempted murder of David Frost.

Last year, Danton played for teams in Sweden and South Moravia. He has signed to play for the Coventry Blaze in the Elite League in England. Prior to that, he spent two years at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia. In his second year at St. Mary’s, Danton was named an Academic All-Canadian, achieving a 3.9 grade point average for three semesters.

For the most part, Frost is “persona non grata” in hockey circles. There are no welcome mats set out for him in any arenas. He knows the game, but his methods of accomplishing hockey success were simply outrageous.

Danton remains estranged from his family to this day.

The Lost Dream is available at the Wellington Public Library.

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