Why it took 15 years

So the astute reader will realize it took me 15 years to make the jump from Olympic hockey to NHL hockey.

It's mostly, rightly or wrongly, my association at that time of NHL hockey with too much violence and goonery.

That and lack of an NHL team in Atlanta. Jim Craig came to the Flames, but the team left at the end of the season.

Had the team stayed it might have been different.

Other sports interests took hold though. In the early- to mid- 80s I was a huge NBA fan. I loved watching Larry Bird, an Indiana native, play with the Celtics. Their match-ups with the Lakers then were magical. That rivalry started from the 1979 NCCA final game, which I remember watching with friends and family.

My love for the NBA, and nearly all sports waned, until the early 90s. With the Atlanta Braves run in 1991, I became a baseball fan. The 1994 strike left me disillusioned though.

However another Atlanta team piqued my interest when friends invited me to an Atlanta Knights game. Man those games were loads of fun. That's when I was able give professional hockey a chance.

The rest is history.

Why I'm a Red Wings fan

Without a doubt the Russian Five solidified my Red Wings love. Their puck-possession style game really appealed to me. It reminded me of the way the Soviet Olympic teams and the 1980 U.S. team played. Papa Joe Chevalier on his sports talk show likened the Red Wings to the Soviets. He'd play the Empire Strikes Back theme as he talked about them. Yep, the Russian players really hooked me. As a casual NHL fan at the time I probably thought the Wings were the only team to have Russian players.

The start ...
So there I was in Spring 1995 - disillusioned with baseball because of the strike the previous season. I needed another sports fix. Baseball had started back, but I held a grudge.
I was sitting at a sports bar next to an attractive female co-worker with the Stanley Cup Finals on one of the many TVs.
"Who you for?" I asked.
"The Devils. All the way," she said. She was originally from New Jersey.
"What about you?" she asked.
"Probably the Red Wings," I said.
"Why?"
Why? Maybe at the particular time it was the contrarian in me. Maybe I had heard the Wings had a great team that year. Maybe I knew of the Miracle on Ice connection. Maybe it's because they represent the Midwest whereas the Devils were East Coast. Maybe it's because my grandfather, who I never knew, lived in Detroit. Maybe it's because the Wings represent Motown, and I'm a big fan of Motown music. Maybe, on a subliminal level, it was the winged-wheel logo.
Those are as good reasons as any other.

Contrarian theory
It can be in my nature to be contrary. At least from what some friends have said. Contrary to an attractive woman? Not likely, unless I didn't care or tried to be cool.

Great team theory
Though I can be contrary, maybe I tried hopping on the bandwagon that year. I can't recall what game Michelle and I were watching that night, but that would be telling.

Miracle on Ice theory
If I knew that there was a connection to the "Miracle on Ice" game and the Red Wings in Slava Fetisov, then that would have hooked me. I doubt I knew he had played with the Devils earlier that year.

Midwest theory
That's very likely. I have a great love for the Midwest. Not so much for the East Coast.

Grandfather theory
Also likely. Just looking for some kind of connection to root for a team. I had none to New Jersey.

Motown theory
For six years I worked in record store. I love music, and the Motown sound. Bon Jovi, no thanks, but I do like some Bruce Springsteen music. Hmm ... still not on the level that I do Motown.

Winged-wheel theory
This one didn't dawn on me until a few months ago. Maybe it's the similarity between the Indianapolis Motor Speedway logo and the Red Wings logo that worked on me in a subliminal way.

Anyway, who knows? Maybe it was a combination of all of them that night.
I picked Red Wings, and I have stuck with them for the most part.
While I was a Thrashers season ticket holder for three years, 1999 to 2003, I must confess, I cheered for them instead of the Wings in head-to-head match-ups.
At that time, the Thrashers were 1A, the Wings were 1B.
But that was then and this is now, and I won't waiver in my love for the Red Wings again.

So who's your team? And why?

Why I'm a hockey fan

The other day I was reading a message board. A member asked "why are you a hockey fan"
My answer goes back 28 years ago.



The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team.
That team, those players and what they did made me a hockey fan.
Two must see DVDs: Miracle and Do You Believe in Miracles?
For the literate type, a must read book: Boys of Winter

So they are my reason. What's yours?

NHL2Nite at ESPNZone

Was checking ESPNZone website today because I wanted to see if it mentioned its special seats with the built in speakers. Those are choice. I couldn't find the seats. What I did find was that the Anaheim one loves NHL2Nite. Amazing. Even though the four-letter doesn't broadcast NHL games, and ESPN2 canceled NHL2Nite when it did.

Army vet plays hockey on one leg

Former soldier plays hockey on one leg and a prosthetic leg.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=49592
Gotta love his desire in wanting to play hockey again.
Bowser said he arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here about a week after being wounded. The doctors thought he would have more mobility with a prosthetic leg, he recalled, rather than by keeping his mangled limb.
“The first thing that I thought of was that I wanted to play hockey again,” Bowser said. “So, I said I wanted to have it amputated.”

Goalie gear reduction

During last season there was a heated goalie gear thread at a message board I read. Many favored reducing the size of goalie gear. Some thought it unnecessary and that doing so would increase goalie injuries. My retort to this is if police officers can wear vests that protect them from bullets while still keeping an everyday profile, then hockey goalies should be able to wear protective equipment that doesn't make them look like the Michelin Man.

Anyway I think it's a good idea to try to increase scoring - to get it back to it's 1980's and early 1990's heyday. Below is a screen shot from http://www.dropyourgloves.com/Stats/LeagueGoals.aspx.



At this Ray Slover article some readers don't want to see any more changes and are afraid of All-Star Game like scores. In my opinion that's not likely to happen. My post from the Comments section.

There's high-scoring ASG's because players don't play defense like they do in the regular season. THEY DON'T HIT in the ASG's.

Some it seems are just afraid because it's the idea of much-maligned NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, or at least endorsed by him. Below are some comments.

Nice to see Bettman and friends continuing their quest to make every game as high scoring as an allstar game. Go away Gary!

I love that the "New NHL" rules worked out in Bettman's favor for about five minutes before the scoring was down again and all of the referee's forgot how to call the games. Now, they're just grasping at straws trying to make their vision of game scores in 10-9 region a reality. What's next: eliminating defensemen and widening the rinks so players can dipsy-doo more easily? Give me a break.

You want high scoring? Might as well get rid of goalie masks too. That'll scare them into getting out the way. Goalies today are no where near as tough as goalies in the old days and I'm sure they care more about their face then a game.

I TOTALLY agree with you, why Bettman keeps on changing the game every year i have no idea, i havent seen any other sport abused like that... they all stay relativly the same, except hockey, every year they toss some rules out, and add some in... the game was fine as is... then they started to tinker with it, adding the trapezoid behind the net, the instigator rule (which eliminated the need for players like TIE DOMI... players who i think of when i think hockey...) lol reminds you that even with the skill... you still need some heart... spirit... but all they want are goals goals goals... more goals wont make hockey better... i enjoy watching those goalies making save after save... its not like there are low shots on net (excluding detroit)...

Journalists who also don't favor changes are Slover and Eric McErlain. They wrote these articles in February. The titles alone give away their agenda.
Enough already: Leave goaltenders alone
Give NHL rule changes a breather

I can understand that thinking though. That's the same thinking Bettman used to delay the new old schedule change. I get time for new rules to breathe. Yet with goals per game the situation is urgent. It has been on a downward trend since the mid-1990's.


The downward trend was a major issue pre-lockout and during it. Complaining about that trend was almost universal then from fans to players to management to journalists. The trend was major reason for most of the post-lockout rule changes. There was nary a peep from people who wanted to keep the goals per game status quo.

Many fans complain Bettman stripped the NHL game of its traditions. Here he's trying to go back to the scoring tradition, and he's met with resistance. That resistance seems more of an anti-Bettman bias to me.

At the very least it seems this is a better alternative than bigger nets. That change would be bad, and tradition shattering. The size of the goalie equipment must be reduced.

Other goalie gear blog entries:
Listen to Sid the Kid
Brodeur Speaks Out

Gretzky caused NHL expansion?

Many have said that Gretzky's trade to southern California brought hockey to the Sun Belt. Scott Burnside and Wes Goldstein, two hockey journalists, recently reiterated that point. It's something I've always thought was wrong, and nothing they wrote changed my mind.

Burnside: What about franchises that sprouted in unlikely locales like Anaheim, Phoenix, Nashville, Tampa and Atlanta?
No one knows, of course, but the safe answer would be -- not bloody likely

Atlanta had a team years before Gretzky was even a professional hockey player. Atlanta embraced the Flames, and later the IHL Knights, which won a championship there. The Flames failed because the owner failed. It had nothing to do at all with the box office draw. The Knights left because Ted Turner was going to bring an NHL team, later named the Thrashers, to Atlanta.

Goldstein's article is better in my opinion, but it's still littered with illogical conclusions.

"For sure, him coming here was the best thing that could happen to hockey," said former teammate and current Kings executive Luc Robitaille. "When you do well in Los Angeles, everybody knows and starts watching."

Yet I'm supposed to believe other large markets like New York, Chicago and Philadelphia don't mean anything? It may have been the best thing for southern California hockey, but not the rest of the United States.

In the meantime, seeing the Kings succeed in a non-traditional market encouraged the NHL to try for the same results in places like San Jose, Anaheim, Tampa Bay and Miami. That early 1990s expansion set the stage for handing out even more franchises through the remainder of the decade, a period when the NHL began dotting the South and Southwest. The NHL ended up growing to 30 teams during that rush, 24 in the U.S., a strategy that was intended to get the league a much-coveted national network television contract.

There were only two places to expand to at that time - south and west - and both are non-traditional. That Gretzky landed in Los Angeles, a Sun Belt market, is a coincidence.

As another fan said, hockey was a fad in Los Angeles. The NHL would've expanded regardless of Gretzky's brief influence in the southern California market.

IRL joins NHL on Versus

The IndyCar Series will switch networks.
ABC will still show five races, but the rest will move from ESPN to Versus. I couldn't be happier. This is great news in my opinion. More leagues and sports need to jump on the Versus bandwagon. Like with the NHL, Versus will provide more coverage than the four-letter did. Other race fans I've talked to are happy about the move too.
Yet the the Indianapolis Star only published negative fan reactions. Though the headline is positive - IRL to get more TV time on Versus. The comments on that story are about 50-50. I can't believe so many people are negative toward the change.
It doesn't really matter much to me what those negative fans think; I'm really happy a majority of IRL races will be on Versus next year instead of the four-letter. This move is a positive, and I couldn't be happier about it. The four-letter's coverage of the IRL has been mostly dismal. I've blogged about it. Speaking of dismal - right now the four-letter is showing women's little league softball. Switching to Versus will be a good thing.
Here's Versus' take.
I'm so stoked about this move, it's beyond belief.
When the NHL moved to Versus many of its fans felt the same way, negatively, when it moved. Probably most still do. By all accounts it was a shaky first year, yet Versus' broadcasts have improved steadily.
With racing though, Versus, formerly OLN, is well steeped in that type of coverage with its Tour de France broadcasts. While Versus is in 23 million fewer homes, the network will more than make up for it with more extensive coverage.
I see this move as another blow, and it's a good thing, to the so-called "sports leader."
This announcement is like a big birthday present to me from Tony George. So thank you Mr. George; I appreciate it.

Winged Wheels

Something that's been on my mind is winged wheel logos.
The Red Wings is obviously one, and another is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway logo.

The current Red Wings logo.


And the Indianapolis Motor Speedway logo.


So maybe that's another reason why I love the Wings.
I grew up in Indiana, and loved Indy car racing when I was kid. Auto racing was probably my first sports love. I remember touring the museum when it was on the outside of the track. I memorized - not consciously, but just by looking at the program so much - all the 500 winners from 1961 to 1975. As I got older I moved on to other interests, so by 1985 I wasn't caring as much. Still there was that deep connection. So by 1995 when I became an NHL fan and the Devils met the Wings in the Stanley Cup Final, I chose the Wings.

Maybe a subconscious reason was the winged wheel logo. It dawned on me 13 year later when I saw this at the track. It's a tin replica of the 1951 35th running of the Indianapolis 500.