From Swansea to Milano: Clayton Keller’s Olympic quest is fueled by family
Two of the men most responsible for Clayton Keller realizing his dream of becoming a U.S. Olympic hockey player—his father and grandfather—won’t be in Milano Cortina, Italy, when the Games begin soon.
But they will be with him in other ways.
A visual reminder of his father, Bryan, will be the necklace he always wore before his death. An olfactory reminder of Keller’s late maternal grandfather, Bill Simpson, will be the scent of Lagerfeld cologne.
“You knew my father was close by, because the smell of Lagerfeld would precede him. It is a scent that stays with you,” said Brian Simpson, Bill’s son and Keller’s uncle. “When my father died, I gave Clayton a letter he had written him, that told how much he loved him, and I gave him a bottle of Lagerfeld and I told him, ‘This is love in a bottle,’ and I said, ‘For the rest of my life, if you ever lose it or need a replacement, let me know.’ I’ve delivered bottles at times to him before games.”
Keller, a star NHL player with the Utah Mammoth and pride of Swansea, Illinois, will have both men on his mind when he wears the American uniform at the Games. While it’s been 11 years since his grandfather passed, it’s only been since Thanksgiving Day that his father died in his sleep at age 64.
Keller, 27, has had to compartmentalize his grief. He played for the Mammoth the day after his father’s death, a Friday in Dallas, and again on his hometown ice in St. Louis the next night. In the same building where a young Keller watched Blues games while sitting on the laps of his father and grandfather, the Blues honored Bryan Keller with a photo on the video board and a moment of silence.
Keller knows he will be asked about his father in Italy. For the worldwide media, it’s an obvious story angle. But that will be OK, he said.
“I wouldn’t be the person I am today without him,” Keller said by phone from Salt Lake City. “He taught me a work ethic and all those little things that maybe other dads didn’t preach as much to their kids at such a young age.”
While his birth certificate says he was born in Chesterfield, Missouri, Keller grew up in Swansea on the Illinois side of the river. He and his brother, Jake, took to hockey almost right away. The family lived in a couple of homes in Swansea before settling into one with a big unfinished basement, perfect for shooting real pucks at Fathead figures of goalies Roberto Luongo and Miikka Kiprusoff on opposite walls of a “rink,” complete with handmade dasherboards drawn by Dad.
The house is still owned by the Keller family, and the basement rink, with its puck-marked walls, remains just as it was.
Bryan and Kelley Keller weren’t wealthy parents who could simply chauffeur their sons to hockey practices day and night. Both needed to work full-time. That made grandfather Bill and grandmother Sherry’s help—just as they approached retirement—all the more important, as they drove the boys to games, practices and tournaments across the area.
“I held my hand up and said, ‘I’ll be the babysitter,’” Sherry Simpson, 89, said from her Swansea home. “So, I did, four days a week. Then, when hockey time came, grandpa made the drives to Chesterfield two or three times a week, because Mom and Dad had to keep working to afford all the hockey stuff.”
The shock of son-in-law Bryan Keller’s death still lingers with Sherry.
“He was a workaholic, and yet he said he was going to retire July 1, when he would have turned 65,” she said. “But he has something from his dad with him all the time, and he always has something of grandpa’s with him.”
Keller, who has 54 points in 57 games for the Mammoth and is in the sixth year of an eight-year, $57.2 million contract signed when the team was in Arizona, will center an American team with a legitimate shot at its first Olympic men’s hockey gold since the Miracle on Ice in 1980.
Keller was passed over for the U.S. Four Nations team that lost to Canada in last year’s gold medal game, but used the snub as motivation, not only continuing his stellar play with the Mammoth but also leading Team USA to gold as captain at the IIHF World Championships last summer.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ve got so many good players,” said Keller, who attended Wolf Branch Elementary before playing for the St. Louis AAA Blues with teammates such as Matthew and Brady Tkachuk, and later went to Boston University for one year before being drafted by Arizona seventh overall in 2016. “I couldn’t be more excited to go and play with that group of guys.”
Keller will take his mother, who lives in Arizona, and brother along to Italy, as well as his best friend from the metro-east, Anthony Pellegrino.
Grandmother Sherry would love to be there, but travel isn’t easy at her age. She will be glued to the TV, though, and knows her grandson is always just a text away.
“I send him a text before every game. I say, ‘I’m praying that God will send Dad and Grandpa to you for help,’” Sherry said, who can always count on a summer visit from Clayton. “He’s pretty tough, and they would have wanted him to keep playing no matter what.”
This story was originally published February 6, 2026 at 5:30 AM.
