SIMMONS: Dan and Jeff Petry — how an MLB pitcher became an NHL father
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Steve Simmons 
Former big-leaguer Dan Petry pitched for the Detroit Tigers for the majority of his career. Now he is the proud hockey dad of Jeff, who plays for the Montreal Canadiens. GETTY IMAGES FILE
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Just before the NHL — and so much of the world — shut down in March of 2020, Jeff Petry got into a rental car on an off-day in Tampa, took some of his famous teammates for a drive, and went to visit his father at the training camp of the Detroit Tigers.
It wasn’t just a greeting.
It was a rare opportunity for NHL players — in this case, Petry, Shea Weber, Carey Price and Brendan Gallagher — to take batting practice off Petry’s semi-famous dad, Dan, who pitched for 13 big-league seasons, most of them with the Tigers.
“What a great thrill that was,” said Dan Petry on the phone Tuesday, who won 19 games in 1983. “Carey Price hit first and the guys didn’t think he’d get a ball out of the infield. And when he hit one over the fence, they all went crazy.
“The guy that could really hit, though, was Weber. Not surprising. He hit several home runs. And then he went out and played the outfield, and I think he did that just to show off his arm. He could really throw it. I knew that guy had played before.
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“And the one that surprised me was Brendan Gallagher. He’s a huge baseball fan and a huge Blue Jays fan. He asked me to get jerseys for them and they asked me to sign them. I don’t know if they really knew anything about my career. I was being Jeff’s dad, hanging with the players. That was good enough for me. Those guys have been very important for my son’s career. They’ve been a great influence on him and really helped.”
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Dan Petry admits, “I know very little about hockey. I can’t really skate. I just move around a little bit on the ice. My older son wanted to play, we lived in Detroit, and we signed him up. I figure if you live here, you’ve got to play hockey, right? He went to skating lessons, learned to play, power skating, that kind of thing. And then Jeff just followed along, doing the same things.”
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Aside from working on Tigers broadcasts these days, Petry serves as an assistant high-school baseball coach in the Detroit area. His son, Matt, is the head coach. Matt was born just after the Tigers won the 1984 World Series. Jeff was born two months after the great Blue Jays collapse of 1987, the worst week in Jays history.
“My wife (Christine) couldn’t celebrate us winning in ’84 because she was pregnant, and she couldn’t celebrate us winning the pennant in ’87. I guess that was a good thing,” Petry said. “Maybe we should have had more kids. We might have won more.”
How does the son of a big-league pitcher who had four seasons of 230 innings or more — impossible by today’s metrics — wind up as a top-echelon defenceman in the NHL? Dan Petry is still not entirely sure how it all happened.
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“It’s not like I could help,” said Petry. “What advice could I give him? My favourite player was Dino Ciccarelli. I’d tell Jeff, ‘Why don’t you play like him? Go to the front of the net. That’s all I knew.’ Years later, I met Dino and told him that story. We had a good laugh about it. To be honest, I never thought or realized he’d have a career doing this. I knew he was good. I just didn’t know this good.”
Canadiens rearguard Jeff Petry gets checked by Maple Leafs forward Nick Foligno during Game 1 of their playoff series. Petry has become a standout defenceman in the NHL, scoring 12 goals this season. GETTY IMAGES
Like his father, Jeff Petry had a competitive edge as a kid. He kept pushing himself to get better. Dan or Christine drove to whatever games or tournaments there happened to be. Then the phone started ringing.
It was this coach or that coach. This team or that team. Des Moines, Iowa, on the phone. They wanted him to leave high school to play in the USHL.
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“I had to get educated about what all this was,” said Dan Petry. “I didn’t know anything. Someone asked me, ‘Who is your adviser?’ I said, ‘We don’t have an adviser.’ He said, ‘You better get one.’
“That’s when I realized this was getting serious.”
Jeff Petry wound up playing in the USHL, then Michigan State, then finally getting drafted by the Edmonton Oilers, which really left an impact on his baseball-playing dad. The Oilers were winning championships when Papa Petry was at his best.
“When he got drafted, all I could think of was Wayne Gretzky and (Mark) Messier and that logo. And imagine a team in Canada interested in my son? That was a big deal to me.
“And then he gets traded to Montreal. And he’s wearing that iconic logo. The Habs, that’s something. I know it sounds cliche but to me, it’s like he’s playing for the New York Yankees with those pinstripes. He’s playing for Montreal. He’s only played for teams in Canada, where hockey means so much. I think he’s been fortunate that way to play in such great historical hockey markets.”
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Dan Petry watched the other night when John Tavares went down with an injury, and it brought him back to 1987 and the Tony Fernandez injury off a Bill Madlock slide with about a week to go in the baseball season. It was a play many objected to at the time.
“Fernandez was such a huge part of that team, really the leader at the time,” said Petry. “He broke his elbow on the wooden frame of that old stadium. That was a big blow to the Blue Jays. Did we see them not winning another game after that? Absolutely not.”
But that’s what happened. The Blue Jays lost first place to Detroit, missed the post-season, on the final day of the 1987 season.
“That was a great team. They had the MVP that year in George Bell, remember how good he was? I remember how hard it was to pitch against those teams. They had a great run.” Just not in the last seven games of the season, all of them losses.
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“Things happened. Fernandez got hurt. I think Ernie Whitt got hurt. He was always so tough on us, too. And I remember that game in Toronto, where the ball went through Manny Lee’s legs at shortstop. And we’re thinking, ‘That wouldn’t have happened if Tony was there.’
“You know, that was a great rivalry, Toronto and Detroit. It’s too bad they hardly play each other anymore. I think that’s wrong. You’ve got fans in London and Windsor and places like that, some are Tigers fans, some are Jays fans. There was really something there. Now it hardly means anything.”
Detroit’s Bill Madlock’s infamous hard slide into the Blue Jays’ Tony Fernandez resulted in a fractured elbow for the Jays infielder and played a big role in their late-season collapse in 1987. STAN BEHAL/TORONTO SUN FILES
That’s one rivalry gone, another rekindled with the Leafs and Habs this playoff season. Playing in and around Toronto is nothing new for Jeff Petry. He would play so many tournaments in youth hockey in the area.
“Everything’s a pretty close drive from Detroit,” said his dad.
When the border was open and access was easy, Petry would make the drive along the 401 from Michigan to Montreal.
“I’d never been to Montreal or Quebec before he was traded there,” he said. “Now I can tell you how much I miss it. Not being able to attend games, playoffs, you feel that. And to experience the Bell Centre, the language, the excitement, it’s awesome.”
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Sara Adamson, owner of her home on Merton St. displays her home decorated to support the Toronto Maple Leafs in their upcoming playoff series on Wednesday May 19, 2021. Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Sara Adamson, owner of her home on Merton St. displays her home decorated to support the Toronto Maple Leafs in their upcoming playoff series on Wednesday May 19, 2021. Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Sara Adamson, owner of her home on Merton St. displays her home decorated to support the Toronto Maple Leafs in their upcoming playoff series on Wednesday May 19, 2021. Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Sara Adamson, owner of her home on Merton St. displays her home decorated to support the Toronto Maple Leafs in their upcoming playoff series on Wednesday May 19, 2021. Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Sara Adamson, who owns a home on Merton St., displays her digs decorated to support the Toronto Maple Leafs in their upcoming playoff series on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. Photo by VERONICA HENRI /TORONTO SUN
Sara Adamson, who owns a home on Merton St., displays her digs decorated to support the Toronto Maple Leafs in their upcoming playoff series on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. Photo by VERONICA HENRI /TORONTO SUN
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Jeff Petry is in his 11th NHL season, the past few as an established upper-echelon defenceman. Next season, he’ll tie his father in the family record book for most big-league years. He’s scored 12, 13, 11 and 12 goals the past four seasons on defence. That’s an enormous number. His dad won 15, 19, 18 and 15 games in his four best seasons, also enormous.
“I’ve never given much hockey advice,” said Dan Petry. “Just when he was traded to Montreal, I told him, ‘I want you to do well for Marc Bergevin and Geoff Molson. They’re the ones who traded for you and signed you.’ I think he’s done (it), whether he took my advice or not. At least I hope he has.”
ssimmons@postmedia.com
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