I was still a kid when I asked my mother why she thought my father was better out of my life than in it.

It wasn't easy for my mother to tell me, but the story went like this: She walked into the bathroom one day and found my father passed out on the toilet seat. He had me cradled in one arm and a heroin needle sticking out of the other.

Jemele Hill

Jemele Hill's dad, Jerel Brickerson.

When you're a kid, you don't understand your parents are flawed people. You want them to be perfect, and when they aren't, it's hard to deal with. I was too young to understand the perils of addiction. All I knew was that my father wasn't around.

As an adult I understand things better, and I'm happy to report my father has been clean and sober for 23 years. I was angry at him for a long time, but over the years we've been able to transition from strangers to friends to father and daughter.

Sports was one thing that helped mend our relationship. Nothing breaks the tension between an estranged father and daughter like agreeing Isiah Thomas is the greatest Piston ever. In those early days when we were getting to know each other, I couldn't call him "Dad," but I could ask him what he thought of Curtis Jones, a 1960s Detroit playground legend whom many believe was the best player to ever come out of Michigan.

I'm exposing this bit of family history because a severe back condition has forced my dad, at age 63, to leave a job that has kept him close to his favorite sport for the past 20 years.

Tuesday is my father's final day as bartender at Joe Louis Arena's Olympia Club, where he served suite-holders and bigwigs, and also watched nearly every Detroit Red Wings home game for the past two decades.

I knew my father loved hockey just by the way he talked about it, but I never knew the extent of it until I called him the other day to ask how he felt about leaving the Joe.

He's been fortunate enough to witness some amazing hockey history. My dad saw the Wings end their 42-year Stanley Cup drought in 1997 -- the first of four Stanley Cups the Wings won while my father bartended there.

He saw Steve Yzerman retire. Saw Dominik Hasek arrive, retire, unretire, and then retire again. Saw Sergei Fedorov blossom, booed and bounced -- both by the Wings and Anna Kournikova.

Since he started working at the Joe my dad earned his master's degree and started counseling other addicts, but he still wanted to be near the ice.

You might think it's strange or dangerous that a former addict was a bartender. But it's not my dad's style to be afraid of anything. Once he kicked drugs, they were going to stay kicked.

My dad taught himself to skate with his sister's figure skates. It took about a month before he was proficient enough on the ice to play in the neighborhood pickup games. "It was either that or sit around all winter and throw snowballs," he said. "You kind of get tired of throwing snowballs."

After my grandmother finished watching Lawrence Welk, my dad would race to the TV and put on the weekly hockey game. He loved watching Henri Richard, Gordie Howe and Terry Sawchuk. My dad's seven brothers and sisters weren't particularly thrilled with his viewing choices.

My father played hockey until he was 18. As Detroit began to slide into urban decay, upkeep for neighborhood hockey rinks became less of a priority.

No hockey meant my father had a lot of free time, and that's where drugs came into play. At 19, my dad started experimenting with heroin because some of his friends were doing it. When I came along 11 years later, the drugs had taken hold and he was in no shape to be a father.

I used to think my dad and I talked sports because it was just an easy way for two people who didn't know each other that well to make conversation.

I see now it's also a way for me to see who my dad really is and, if I'm lucky, see why he made the choices he did.

Jemele Hill can be reached at jemeleespn@gmail.com.