ST. LOUIS — John Kelly took a seat on a plush white couch in his living room. There was a St. Louis Blues coffee table book laying in front of him and several dress shirts packed in a garment bag behind him.

They were symbols of Kelly’s un-be-lievable history in St. Louis, where he was the Blues’ TV broadcaster for 21 seasons, and his unexpected future in Los Angeles, where he was named to the same position with the Kings on Thursday.

In July, the Blues announced that Kelly’s contract would not be renewed. Business CEO Chris Zimmerman said it was a mutual decision made by the team and FanDuel Sports Network Midwest, which carries the broadcasts.

The club is changing to a simulcast and will be using the radio broadcast team of Chris Kerber and Joey Vitale for both TV and radio moving forward, leaving Kelly without a job.

The fan backlash directed at an organization that has prided itself on tradition was swift and significant.

Kelly, 65, moved to St. Louis with his family from Ottawa in the late 1960s, when his father, Dan, became the Blues’ full-time radio announcer. Dan had a Hall of Fame career with the Blues, and his son followed in his footsteps.

“My wife and I thought that I would finish my career here in St. Louis,” Kelly said in his first interview since his dismissal. “I’ve been asked a lot in the last four or five years, ‘How long do you want to announce?’ My answer has been, ‘As long as I have a great passion for calling games and a love for the job, I want to keep going.’ I still have that passion. The fact that it didn’t end in St. Louis is a bit of a curveball obviously, but that’s just the way it is.”

John Kelly did his first public interview Thursday following his departure from the Blues in July. (Jeremy Rutherford / The Athletic)

It all changed on July 9, when Kelly and his wife, Jennifer, were vacationing in Perdido Key, between the cities of Pensacola, Fla., and Orange Beach, Ala. It was a final little getaway before the start of Blues training camp in September.

Being behind the microphone for season No. 22 wasn’t a guarantee because Kelly worked 2024-25 on a one-year contract. But multiple industry sources said that FanDuel Sports Network had been working on new deals for Kelly and color analyst Jamie Rivers a month earlier.

So when a phone call came on July 8, while the Kellys were on a golf course, requesting that he jump on a 10 a.m. video call from Florida the following day, he was naturally excited.

“I was under the impression that I would return,” he said.

However, on that call, Kelly learned that the Blues were going in a different direction. He didn’t want to get into specifics about the conversation out of respect to the other parties, but acknowledged the words hit him hard.

“It broke my heart,” Kelly said. “I was crushed. My wife was actually listening on the Zoom call, and she was crushed. Anyone would be. I’ve had such a long connection to the Blues and the city through my dad’s work. So when I got that Zoom call, you can imagine how shocked I was.”

There was shock — perhaps even anger — but as the Kellys cut short their trip to Florida and returned home to St. Louis the following day, he took an understanding approach to the setback.

“The Blues and FanDuel Sports Network certainly had that right to make that decision, and I respect that,” Kelly said. “I wasn’t happy about it, but I respect it. A lot of people have been replaced or fired or contracts not renewed. It’s never happened to me before, but it’s happened to a lot better people than me. They didn’t renew my contract. ‘OK, I’ll move on, that’s the way it is.’”

In July, Zimmerman said that parting ways with Kelly was not a cost-cutting move by the organization.

Asked if he thought it was, Kelly replied, “You can call it whatever you want: cost-cutting or rebranding or whatever. The facts are, they had the right to do that and they did it.”

Before the decision would become public on July 10, Kelly phoned his three children: Grace, who lives in New York; Megan, in Boston; Patrick, in St. Louis. He waited until each returned home from work that day before making the call.

“The hardest thing for my wife and I in the hours right after we were told was telling the kids,” Kelly said. “They were heartbroken. Like any kid, they’re proud of their parents, and the jobs they have.”

Kelly’s mother, Fran, the 88-year-old widow of Dan, was on vacation in Canada when it happened. The family decided to wait until she returned home 10 days later to notify her of the news.

“I thought it was better off coming from me,” Kelly said. “I knew that she would be very hurt, but I had already known that I had a chance at the Kings’ job. I tried to focus on the positive with her, and because of that, I think she accepted the news a little bit easier. ‘Hey mom, I’m not happy about it, a lot of great things happened here, but Jennifer and I are really excited to perhaps get this Kings job.’”

The timing of Kelly’s exit with the Blues was difficult because by July, many of the vacant broadcasting jobs in the NHL had been filled.

“The timing surprised me, but again, it was within the Blues’ rights to do something like that,” he said. “But yeah, it surprised me.”

Fortunately, following the retirement of Hockey Hall of Famer Nick Nickson after 40 years in L.A., the Kings had an opening.

“There was speculation that I was going to retire, and that’s the furthest thing from my mind,” Kelly said. “Right away, I started the process of looking for a new job. Then about a month later, I got an offer and we worked it out and here I am today with what I consider one of the premier jobs in the NHL, working for the Kings and FanDuel Sports Network.”

Going live in 3… 2… 1… 📺

Announcing our @FanDuelSN_West broadcast team and schedule for the 2025-26 season! More info 👇

Tune in info 📺📲 https://t.co/B6zJyUitpb
Full release 📰📲 https://t.co/RSLE3inQZf pic.twitter.com/0VQpstLzN3

— LA Kings (@LAKings) September 11, 2025

The Kellys will leave for L.A. on Friday. They’ll live in Manhattan Beach, where he’ll have a 1 1/2-mile walk to the Kings’ practice facility. He knows just one player personally on the roster: former Blue Joel Edmundson.

“I’m really excited for a new challenge,” Kelly said. “I’m going to be very comfortable because of the people I’m working with. And I’ve thought about this a lot: I’ve been an NHL announcer for 37 years. This is the first time that a team has told me that they didn’t want me. I think that’s a pretty good run.

“And now because of this great opportunity with the Kings, I have a job as an NHL broadcaster for 38 years in a row. Even though this decision was made, I still never doubted that I could do the job and I’ve got confidence that I can still be a good announcer in the NHL. It hasn’t deterred me.”

Meanwhile, Kelly has been humbled by the reaction from Blues fans. It began on July 10 and hasn’t stopped.

“The support that I’ve gotten from Blues fans, people in the organization, people in the business, it’s blown me away,” he said. “I had hundreds of texts and calls, which were so great. I read some social media and it was really positive toward me and I really appreciated that. To me, it doesn’t matter if you’re a coach or a player or a broadcaster, you want people to like what you do and I’m no different. Not everyone is going to like what I do, I get that, but to hear so many positive comments feels really good.”

In the aftermath of the announcement, Kelly didn’t go out to many restaurants or play much golf, but after his annual three-week trip to his cottage in Canada, he’s ventured out more lately.

“People have come up to me and said, ‘Hey, JK, thanks for all you did and good luck to you!’” he said. “The thing I would say to Blues fans, even though I am the son of a man who I think is the greatest hockey announcer ever, I never felt that I was entitled to have a job in hockey with the Blues, or any team for that matter. I’ve always felt it was a privilege to work in the NHL and for the St. Louis Blues and I still feel that way.”

Kelly said it’s odd to think that he’s not the Blues’ broadcaster anymore.

“It is,” he said.

Thank you, St. Louis. pic.twitter.com/Y4qteWG5u3

— John Kelly (@Jkellyhockey) July 11, 2025

But Kelly claims to harbor no ill-will toward the organization that let him go.

How?

“Because instead of focusing on the negative, I’m focusing on the 21 years I had here, the great memories, and how I was treated by everybody,” he said. “As I said, the Blues made a choice to go with one broadcast team instead of two and I was the odd man out and that’s just the way it is. You can’t read too much into it other than that.”

It won’t be long, however, before Kelly is broadcasting in St. Louis.

On Oct. 21, in the Blues’ sixth game of the 2025-26 regular season, they host the Kings.

“I’ll be walking into the Dan Kelly press box and I’ll be looking up at my father’s banner,” Kelly said. “It’s going to be emotional, yet it’s going to be exciting to come back. I’m proud of the work I did here. I’m going to come back and have my head held up high and be really excited to come back to Enterprise Center.”

Speaking of Kelly’s father, who died of cancer in 1989, what would he think about his son’s unceremonious end in St. Louis?

“I know people have said, hypothetically, ‘What would he say?’” Kelly said. “All I know is that he was so proud of all of his kids. There are only 32 teams in the NHL, and I know my dad was extremely proud that I made it to the NHL. I was the announcer here and had a lot of great memories, of course highlighted by the Stanley Cup. I want to focus on all the good things that happened to me.”

(Photos: Jeremy Rutherford / The Athletic)