‘Hockey Wives’ means more Nicole Brown being freaking awesome

When Puck Daddy reported that “NHL Revealed” executive producer Julie Bristow is developing a “Hockey Wives” TV series with Canada’s W Network featuring goaltender Ryan Miller’s wife Noureen DeWulf and Kings captain Dustin Brown’s wife Nicole, my first thought was:

It’s small confession time. Some friends and I have privately had many a conversation where we say that the Browns should have a reality show. A huge part of this for me is that every time I’ve seen Nicole Brown interact with her family, usually as part of some segment on Dustin, she’s hilarious. The way Nicole and Dustin interact is entertaining, and their little kid battalion is prone to hamming it up in front of cameras, too.

Much of NHL fandom-at-large was introduced to Nicole last season through “NHL Revealed.” The Brown family at Toyota Sports Center is the most infamous clip.

 
There’s also some fun footage of Nicole watching the USA vs Russia game during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics where she texted back and forth with Jonathan Quick’s wife:

That might have been the Brown family’s first real exposure to a kind of reality TV/docu-series format, but it isn’t the first time their interactions have been recorded. Though the Kings are a notoriously insular team now, there was more random, quirky, and/or experimental Kings Vision and sometimes Fox Sports video content but back when nobody gave a crap about how that locker room operated.

In 2008, Fox Sports Network aired a whole half-hour show called “LA Kings Insider.” Patrick O’Neal interviewed Dustin and Nicole and talked about everything from Dustin’s year in the AHL to becoming captain.

The show also introduced Kings fans to their dogs, which I’m only mentioning now because while Anze Kopitar’s dog Gustl is the pride and joy of all Kings fans these days (rightfully! Gustl’s the damn best!), Kopitar copied Brown on the golden doodle front.

Look at Brown’s dog Milo:

‘Sup.

The best section of that entire FSN show is when Dustin and Nicole sit down to talk about growing up together. Nicole played on competitive hockey teams until she graduated high school, and The Fourth Period once published an article that said she isn’t shy about proclaiming herself the best player in their household.

When O’Neal asked about what winning the Stanley Cup would mean to Dustin, viewers then learned that for a long time Nicole could boast that she’d won more championships than him because the Kings used to suck and all.

Dustin Brown’s favorite part about winning the Cup again in June was probably being able to change this conversation, let’s be real. Finally! A leg to stand on.

It’s mentioned in the same show that at the time she still played in a rec league up until she got pregnant. Nicole tells the FSN cameras about how would Dustin come to the games and read a book while any line other than Nicole’s was on the ice, which is a prime mental image. Since they have a multitude of small kids now, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t play hockey regularly anymore at all, but the idea of seeing shots of Nicole playing while her family supports among all the other stuff about being a NHL hockey family could be really fun.

The Browns have also been involved in various community projects since Dustin Brown first came to the Kings, including helping build a playground back in 2010. Nicole’s popped in segments about those kinds of projects through the years as well, always charming.

The only drawback right now is that the show doesn’t seem to have a US distributor. For some reason the NHL Network passed on airing this series. The claim is that they didn’t think it’d fit into their brand, as if NHLN has a wealth of so much stellar programming that they can’t rerun “NHL Tonight” one time less. Guess what? They don’t. Hopefully the distribution problem changes or the episodes at least somehow find their way online.

In the meantime, I’m tentatively excited about what “Hockey Wives” has the potential to be. As someone who’s secretly championed Nicole Brown: Potential Breakout Star Personality, it’s already great that Bristow and her colleagues recognize that she’s damn engaging.
 

Here’s the full “LA Kings Insider” segment: