Blue Wahoos To Host Tampa Bay Lightning Broadcaster For Special Book Signing Events

In 22 years as radio voice of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Dave Mishkin has written thousands of scripts and summoned his broadcasting gift in delivering spontaneous prose.

Nothing, however, can compare to becoming a fiction novelist.

In a true labor of love, which started about 15 years before completion, his signature calls on Lightning hockey games took a line shift change into authoring his acclaimed book, “Blind Squirrel,” which is a 14 chapter creative inspirational story of a former pro hockey player overcoming mental health issues.

“I think through much of the novel, I have drawn from my own experiences, and in a way that I think added authenticity to what I was making up,” said Mishkin, who will be attending Friday’s Blue Wahoos game against the Mississippi Braves to greet fans and sign copies of his book.

He will then be visiting the Bodacious Bookstore on Saturday, located at Southtowne across from the Downtown YMCA, where he will do a book signing beginning at 11 a.m. At both locations, Mishkin will be a guest on Fox Sports Radio-Pensacola with long-time Pensacola sports radio personality Paul Chestnutt, who met Mishkin in March 2023 in Tampa during a special visit.

“I knew I could write the hockey part,” said Mishkin, reflecting on the novel. “But I tried to write a book that was accessible to people who loved hockey, but also the people who don’t know the first thing about hockey.”

He attained the quest through a relatable story of a guy named Noah Nicholson, who lost his parents at a boyhood age in an auto accident, traveled from California to Massachusetts, lived with his grandmother, gave up baseball aspirations and transitioned a skilled hockey player while battling through mental health challenges.

“I wanted it to be a feel good story,” said Mishkin, a Yale graduate, who began hockey broadcasting in 1991 for the Johnstown Chiefs, then the Hershey (Pa.) Bears before getting hired by the Lightning. “The guy I portray at then end of the book is in a better place than the guy at the beginning of the book.”

This will be Mishkin’s first visit to Pensacola, his first trip to the Northwest Florida and Panhandle region.

“We’ve been in Florida for more than 20 years, but when we’ve gone on trips, it’s usually traveling through the state up Interstate-75 or across to I-95,” said Mishkin, whose wife, Dulcie, have together raised two daughters. “So I am looking forward to it. I have heard it’s a beautiful city and the downtown is really something.”

The Lightning have a couple Pensacola connections. Pensacola native Derrick Brooks, who has ownership stake in the Blue Wahoos, is the Lightning executive vice president for community development and social impact.

His NHL front office career follows being one of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers most beloved players and Pro Football Hall of Fame member.

“I don’t have an office at the arena and (Brooks) does, so it’s usually just once in a while when I see him, but he’s so down to earth and friendly and always has a smile on his face,” Mishkin said.

The Lightning also have a connection with the Pensacola Ice Flyers. The Lightning once had a traveling staff of street hockey members who visited schools throughout the state, including Escambia and Santa Rosa County schools, to set up a street hockey game and bring awareness to the sport.

The Ice Flyers have formerly held Tampa Bay Lightning Nights with the team mascot.

The Lightning franchise, which began playing in 1992 as an NHL expansion team, is now considered one of the best brands in professional hockey and throughout the major pro sports leagues.

“It did not happen overnight,” Mishkin said. “When the Lightning got to the Stanley Cup Final in 2015 we still had to put in stopgaps so that a lot of our available seats weren’t purchased by the opposing team’s fans. We didn’t have the season ticket base. And then, a couple years later, that problem went away.”

The Lightning won their first Stanley Cup in 2004. They were going for an astounding third consecutive championship in 2022 against the Colorado Avalanche when Mishkin decided to resume writing the “Blind Squirrel” novel. He began sometime “in the late 2000’s” with creation of his idea.

“I had a done a fair amount of writing in my broadcasting career, whether it was in game programs (stories) or websites, or whatever, but I never really embarked on an undertaking like this,” Mishkin said. “So I figured I would get started writing the story.

“And then I got stuck, I didn’t get very far and I couldn’t advance the story. And I wasn’t really thrilled with what I had produced. So I got frustrated and I put it away and I said maybe I will come back to this someday, maybe not.

“And as the years passed by, it seemed like the answer was that I would not (resume). I had not even thought about it.”

But as the that season went into spring of 2022, the Lightning were struggling to assure a playoff spot. And Mishkin wondered what he would do if the team’s season ended in April.

“They were down in the first round playoff series in 2022,” he said. “And I was looking at the first longer-than-typical off season in a few years

“I said to my wife one day, I wonder what I’m going to do with myself if the Lightning don’t get out of this series. And she said, ‘Why don’t you go back to that novel you started all those years ago. And I was like, yeah, right.

“But the Lightning wound up winning that series, so they kept playing. I started thinking again about the story… and where I had gotten stuck in the beginning, I left that alone. I start thinking about the second half of the book and what does (fiction character’s) recovery look like.”

Before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final in 2022, Mishkin remembers getting off the team plane in Denver, checking into his hotel room and starting to write the book again.

“I really never experienced anything like this, before or since, but I just had this onrush of creativity that lasted more than five-or-six weeks while the story come together,” he said.

The Avalanche foiled the Lightning’s attempt at a three-peat in the Stanley Cup Finals. But Mishkin finished the book in three and a half months. He then found a book publisher. The novel was then produced for sale in April.

He had a couple book signings at the Lightning’s Amalie Arena. His visit to Pensacola will be the third book signing.

It has been very well-received, thankfully,” he said. But the feedback I have gotten back has been very positive. I wanted to write something that people would enjoy.

WANT TO MEET/GREET?

WHO: Dave Mishkin, long-time radio broadcast voice of Tampa Bay Lightning.

WHAT: Book signing for “Blind Squirrel” fiction novel.

WHERE: Blue Wahoos Stadium and Bodacious Bookstore

WHEN: Friday-Saturday

DETAILS: Mishkin will be at the Blue Wahoos game Friday and will be greeting and signing book copies on the concourse area behind home plate. He will be honored before the game and throw out a ceremonial first pitch.

On Saturday, Mishkin will be at the Bodacious Bookstore downtown from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. signing book copies. He will also be part of sports radio interviews with Fox Sports-Pensacola’s Paul Chestnutt.