Just like a Detroit Red Wings tilt, face-offs, jabs, and cheap shots flew around the MotorCity Casino Hotel one warm Saturday in August. The occasion was the fifth Jamie Daniels Foundation celebrity roast, this year taking verbal slapshots at Hockeytown goaltending legend Chris Osgood.
(In consideration of journalistic standards and potential lawsuits, this article will not repeat any of the one-liners.)
However, also like a hockey game, flashes of sadness and contemplation wove into the evening as the event acknowledged two milestone anniversaries: the Red Wings’ 100th year as a professional hockey franchise and the 10th anniversary of Jamie Daniels’s passing. The 23-year-old son of Red Wings play-by-play announcer Ken Daniels and Lisa Daniels-Goldman was receiving treatment for a substance use disorder when he died from a drug overdose.
Ten years. Ten long years, which seem to move even slower for any parent who has lost a child — especially since, as Lisa notes, a little bit of memory fades with each passing year. “Our hearts will never heal from the loss of Jamie,” she told the sold-out, tear-filled MotorCity crowd. “I would give anything to have my son back and not have this foundation. But my hope is that through the Jamie Daniels Foundation, we can help other families avoid the devastating loss that ours, and far too many others in this room tonight, have experienced.”
Established in 2018, the foundation — a fund at the Children’s Foundation of Michigan — is devoted to ending the stigma young adults, adolescents, and their family members attach to drug addiction by creating programs, supporting existing initiatives, advocating for continuing education, and providing grants. It has implemented prevention programming in more than a dozen high schools and funded recovery programs at 11 Michigan colleges and universities, including Wayne State University and the University of Michigan.
Resources also go toward training on mindfulness and healthy coping skills for elementary school students, as well as scholarships for college students in recovery. Most recently, the foundation helped develop a new resource portal for parents, funded by the CDC.
“It’s called ‘The Concern Project,’” says foundation executive director Chris Perry. “It’s geared toward parents and loved ones who have someone in their life who’s struggling with a substance. That person may be in their 20s or older. Parents like Ken and Lisa would have really benefited from something like this. What do they need to learn? What resources are available in Michigan? So we helped to expand that program, and we’re really excited about it.”
Ken and Lisa knew Jamie had battled anxiety and depression for a long time. They believe that a therapist misdiagnosed him with ADD as an adolescent and prescribed Adderall, assuring them that the medication was safe and that many teenagers took it to help them concentrate.
However, although Jamie graduated from high school without incident and went on to Michigan State, he continued taking Adderall, and therapist after therapist refilled his prescription.
While he graduated from MSU with a 3.5 GPA, Jamie knew he was in trouble. He had also graduated from Adderall to opioids and couldn’t quit on his own. With his parents’ support, he checked into an inpatient treatment facility, which released him after two weeks with no long-term aftercare plan.
Searching for help anywhere, they found a psychologist in Michigan who referred him to an inpatient program in Florida. He would eventually move into a sober living home, where he would undergo drug testing, attend outpatient counseling, and reclaim a life of sobriety.
The family didn’t know, however, that “recovery mills” had become a common scam in Florida. Their patients “were worth more addicted than sober,” Ken mutters. Jamie stayed in Florida for seven months and remained clean for 228 days, but he ultimately ingested a lethal dose of an opioid containing heroin and fentanyl. His death made national headlines, leading Ken and Lisa to speak before Congress.
“Parents need to be educated,” Ken states. “We’re talking high school, but you could start earlier. We have programs for the elementary schools and coping skills, and that’s been a huge success so far. But to have parents realize when their kid’s isolating in their room, or their grades start to fall, or they’ve lost certain friends or are hanging out with friends they shouldn’t. Addicts are fantastic liars, and they can turn in a second. Jamie did it with us. Parents need to know the signs.”
But why a celebrity roast to honor Jamie’s legacy and raise funds for the foundation that bears his name? “Jamie loved to laugh,” Ken told the MotorCity throng. “It was infectious. Once you heard it, you couldn’t unhear it. So the roast came to be.”
He continued, “In hockey we celebrate the goal, but the assist cannot be overlooked. Our goal is to help put an end to substance use disorder. You will assist us by leaving here with the knowledge we didn’t have. If we only knew then what we know now.”
For more information or to donate to the foundation, go to jamiedanielsfoundation.org.
This story originally appeared in the November 2026 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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