Blog blast past: A Frosty reception in K-Town

Former hockey coach David Frost's sexual exploitation trial began earlier today in my hometown of Napanee, Ontario. It's been covered by ESPN.com. The author Laura Robinson is apparently going to be there. Not to claim any connection to this sordid story, beyond having played the odd hockey or ball game in Deseronto as a youth, but from Aug. 9, 2006, here's one of our posts about the reception Frost received when his spouse opened a business in Kingston.

So David Frost, the Rogue Agent and short-list candidate for sketchy character of the century, is apparently involved with a newly opened juice bar in none other than yours truly's adopted hometown of Kingston, Ontario. Fan-freaking-tastic. How lovely is that?

For the uninitiated, Frost is the ex-hockey agent who was so controlling and manipulative toward his clients and players that ex-St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton felt he had no choice but to try and have him killed.

According to one report, Frost isn't the owner or proprietor of this new juice bar in Kingston's downtown. Far as anyone knows, his wife is running the show.

Just like how, on paper, the Rogue Agent (the words of the investigative journalists at CBC's the fifth estate), didn't have anything to do with the Pembroke Lumber Kings, the Junior A team part-owned by one of his other "Brampton Boys," ex-NHLer Sheldon Keefe. Regardless, he was still caught by the fifth estate's cameras being around the team last season. He wasn't the owner, the coach or the general manager, but he was hanging around.

Fans who bravely came forward to talk to the CBC said he was pretty much up to his old tricks, controlling and manipulating young men through threats and intimidation. The kind of treatment you generally get when you join a cult.

This new Frost-related venture came to light through an e-mail that's been forwarded from one Kingstonian to another over the past few weeks. By the time it landed in my inbox with the subject line "slimy grease ball," it had been sent to about 100 addresses.

There's no telling how many more people might have forwarded it since then, or told people about it. Aside from leaving the names of the people and the business itself out, there's no ethical dilemma in revealing how Kingstonians feel about David Frost being associated with a business in their town. It's one man's opinion, sent to dozens and dozens of people who may be inclined to feel similar sentiments:

The 'new place' is billed as a nightclub, eatery. I have not been to this fine establishment and won't ever. I read an article in a local paper stating the proud owner is none other than David Frost's wife. The article went on to say that he has nothing to do with the business. I was downtown last night for dinner and who do I look over and see walking out of the [name of the establishment in question deleted] but the slimy grease ball himself. Interesting to see how long the business will last when people find out who is affiliated with it. (The italics and the link are in the e-mail.)

One of the initial set of recipients has told the original writer, "good call," adding "a friend of mine from work saw him (Frost) sitting in there when he went to check the place out a couple of weeks ago. he turned around and walked out. that guy gives everyone the creeps."

There's nothing to stop Frost, or his spouse, from trying to earn a living. A juice bar in Kingston has a chance to be a successful business, what with all the Queen's University students who always want to be trendy and never read the newspaper.

Still, what does the outrage of one e-mail tell us about David Frost, and what he did or didn't do to Mike Danton and his family? Danton is now in jail, his life ruined. His family, the Jeffersons, has had one son torn away from them and had a younger son essentially molested in a 2000 hazing incident where Frost apparently pointed a rifle at him. The whole sordid saga is shrouded in mystery, but Frost is there, always.

It says that the general public in the Kingston area, which unfortunately for everyone else Frost seems to have made his home base, is damn right to want to have nothing to do with anything that might bear this guy's taint.

The courts couldn't stop him, since he was tough to pin down, even though as far back as 10 years ago when he coached Danton with the Junior A Quinte Mohawks in Deseronto, Ont., people in that Eastern Ontario community knew something was very, very wrong, but were too intimidated to rock the boat.

A lack of oversight by the powers-that-be in the hockey world allowed him to run roughshod over players. Sure, there was disciplinary action and a court appearance after he allegedly assaulted one of his own players in full view of hundreds of spectators, but at the end of the day, the courts and the hockey people didn't seem to do enough.

From the time in 2001 that a psychologist turned over photos to the authorities that depicted child abuse against Danton's younger brother, it took the NHL Players' Association four years to remove him from its roster of agents. That's cold, hard fact.

The only group who could deliver something remotely resembling justice were the journalists, including but not limited to the fifth estate's Bob McKeown, a fellow alum of the Queen's Journal, Greg McArthur, then of the Ottawa Citizen and now of The Globe and Mail, Sun Media's Steve Simmons and ESPN The Magazine's Bruce Feldman and Gare Joyce (who also wrote about it for Toro magazine.)

Frost's wife is free to run her business, of course, but at the same time, people in Kingston have the power not to help it succeed by voting with their feet and refusing to support it. More than a few already seem dead-set against getting in line to sample any of the establishment's Kool-Aid, to borrow Danton's immortal phrase. Can't disagree with that for a second.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.