To hear Mike Danton tell it, his relationship with David Frost was almost inevitable.

There will always be, considering the mental state of all of the personalities involved, multiple sides to the story of how Mike Danton went from the National Hockey League to a felon serving a 7 1/2–year bit in hell holes like Fort Dix, NJ and Sandstone, Minnesota.

But those same personalities make it is easy to gather up some sympathy for Danton, who began the long road back when he sat down with Hockeycentral’s Nick Kypreos for a fascinating interview to be aired Wednesday night across Sportsnet.

The interview reveals Danton as simply another kid who was not afforded the opportunity to grow up into a normal, well-adjusted adult. Prisons are full of Mike Dantons; stocked with troubled products of dysfunctional homes who never learn right from wrong.

In Danton’s case it was a father, Steve Jefferson he alleges was abusive. Then he was further victimized by another man — his agent/mentor David Frost — whom he wrongly chose to rescue him from it all.

One of those influences could ruin a life. But despite of them, Danton still accomplished the Canadian dream, playing 87 games as a National Hockey League winger.

In the interview, Kypreos asks Danton which act was more about trying to divorce himself from his upbringing: moving out as a teenager, or changing his surname from Jefferson to Danton?

"Moving out and changing my name, they came about seven years apart from each other," Danton says. "Moving out was more, ‘I don't want to get beat everyday.’ The conditions of the house. Cockroaches. No toilet paper, no soap, no food, no clothes, no TV, no telephone.

"Changing of the name, that came when I finally started accepting some of the things that I've gone through, some of his [father’s alleged] actions," he says, claiming a variety of abuses he suffered or witnessed while growing up. "I didn't want the name Jefferson to be misconstrued with the person that I am. I didn't want any part of that."

If the picture Danton paints is an accurate one, then his choice of Frost as a surrogate father is a textbook example of how a victim of abuse tends to seek out those same qualities in their next soul mate.

Would a 14-year-old then-Mike Jefferson, coming from that upbringing, have the right tools to choose the proper father figure to lean on? Of course not - no more than an abused daughter so often escapes a tough situation at home by hooking up with an abusive boyfriend.

Danton was never taught any life skills and he admits as much. Any of the social tools we take for granted might have kept him out of prison.

"A lot of the doctors’ notes that have been written," he says, "they don't talk about me being a 23-year-old man. (In) April 2004 I was hovering anywhere between an eight-year-old and a 14-year-old at all times."

He is 29 now, but it was April of ’04 when a 23-year-old Danton was arrested for trying to arrange for a hitman to kill Frost. Or so we thought at the time.

Had this been the National Football League or the National Basketball Association, where gunplay is far more common, it would have still been a major headline. But in the NHL? A white-bread Canadian kid, from Brampton, trying to have his agent killed?

That is what we thought then, and what the police would have us believe even now. But Danton swears that isn’t the case.

"My intended victim was my biological father Steve Jefferson," he states, as if that makes this whole thing any less weird.

His mental state that spring was erratic at best. He had convinced himself that a killer had been sent from Canada to gun him down. He flipped out, making some poor decisions.

In the end, Danton’s rock bottom was no different than that of any alcoholic or drug fiend. His just came with a 7 ½-year jail term attached to it.

"This is going to sound a little weird," he admits to Kypreos. "I'm happy that it happened. I’m not happy that the crime happened — thankfully nobody got hurt — but I’m happy that the situation happened. I needed something in my life to change. It sucks, but going to prison changed my life and it saved my life. I grew up there pretty much."

Today Danton is skating, and at 29 figures to get another chance. It will likely start with a minor-league team that signs him to sell some tickets, attached to the promise of a chance to perform in front the NHL scouts who populate the minor-league rinks.

And perhaps, if he can regain some version of his former, gritty, checking game and permissions are granted, he might find a training camp invite next fall. That will be up to his agent, who he says will not be Frost, who was de-certified by the NHLPA.

"I've hit a fork in the road in my life," Danton says. "Dave and I have talked and we both agree that it's not the best thing in the world for Dave to be associated with my hockey."

That he is still talking to Frost at all is a sign that Danton is still vulnerable. Like alcoholics, victims of abuse, they say, always are.

For his sake, let’s hope someone trustworthy reaches out to Danton. Someone respected in the game, and soon.

Because this kid has had enough bad shakes in life. He is probably due for a break this time.