Game #7 - Windsor Spitfires v. Flint Firebirds – Ontario Hockey League - WFCU Centre - Windsor Ontario, Canada

We had to wait 20 minutes to get into Windsor. The border guard at the Detroit-Windsor tunnel was taking his sweet time, and while the lines of cars around us kept moving, we stayed still.. Having crossed the border hundreds of times before, Michelle and I knew the drill. Besides, they are nice when you want to come into Canada. The only jerks at border crossings are the American agents who seem to love to harass their fellow countrymen trying to get home.

“What is your purpose in Canada today?” the guard, a man in his mid 20’s, asked.

“They are going to the hockey game, I’m going to the casino” Michelle said. In this case, “they” meant myself and Csaba, our friend who is making his third appearance in The Month of Hockey.

“Who’s playing?” the guard, who was possibly sincerely interested in the answer, asked Michelle.

“Windsor.” Michelle said.

“Who are they playing?”

Michelle paused, then looked at me.

“The Flint Firebirds” I said, hoping my answer wouldn’t arouse suspicion in this inexperienced looking guard to make us pull over and get searched.

“Enjoy the game” he said, and handed us back our cards.

The Windsor Arena, former home of the Detroit Red Wing franchise

Windsor is just across river, and is actually geographically south of Detroit, meaning that it is the only place in North America where you have to look south to see into Canada. Hockey fans in Michigan take advantage of this proximity by watching Hockey Night In Canada on CBC, the best produced sports program in the world. Ron McLean and Don Cherry have been staples in my life for 30 years now. Also of note in Windsor, is that you can still visit the first home of the Detroit Red Wings. Even today, 31 years after Olympia Stadium fell to the wrecking ball, and Joe Louis Arena sits waiting for its demise, you can still see where the Red Wings played their first season. The Windsor Arena, built in 1924, was where the Detroit Cougars (the team’s original name) played in the 1926-27 NHL season while Olympia was being built. The building, 94 years old, is still there today, though sadly is no longer in use and is boarded shut. This old barn is right by the tunnel, so we stop by. It’s a sad sight. There’s nothing there to denote the arena’s history, or the fact that the Red Wings played there for one season, or that numerous old time hockey legends such as Howie Morenz, Hap Holmes and Eddie Shore played there.

The Windsor Arena was also the home of the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League. The OHL is one of three major junior leagues (with the Western Hockey League and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) comprising the Canadian Hockey League, or CHL. With teams mainly in Canada, the CHL is one of biggest feeder leagues of talent into the NHL. On the NHL’s opening night in 2017, there were 352 CHL alumni on NHL rosters, comprising 52% of all of the players to play in the NHL that night. The OHL itself had 171 players on opening night NHL rosters, 24% of the league’s players. Players range in age from 16 to 21, and are required to attend high school and are housed with “billet families” where they live. The teams are considered amateur, though players may receive a stipend from the team they play for. As in US college hockey, a player may be drafted by an NHL team but continue to play for their junior team, usually at the discretion of the NHL club. Unlike college hockey, fighting is allowed, and players can be traded just as in the pros. The teams in the CHL play for the Memorial Cup, the junior league’s championship trophy in a tournament that is heavily covered by Canadian media. With some 60 teams competing for it, the Memorial Cup is even more difficult to win than the Stanley Cup The Spitfires are the defending Memorial Cup champions, making them a celebrity in the hockey world.

Having moved out of the old Windsor Arena in 2008, the Spitfire’s new home is the WFCU Centre, built on the outskirts of town. The rink, holding about 6000 seats, is a mini NHL arena, with suites, a restaurant overlooking the ice, merchandise stores, community outreaches, 50/50 raffles, etc. Csaba and I walk up to the ticket window and get tickets four rows off the ice for $26 each (Canadian, translating to $20 American dollars).  This afternoon’s game is the first OHL game I’ve seen in 28 years, ironically between these same two franchises. Then, it was at the old Cobo Arena and the Firebirds were then the Detroit Compuware Ambassadors, who subsequently morphed into the Detroit Jr. Red Wings, then the Detroit Whalers, to the Plymouth Whalers, and finally after the team was sold, the Flint Firebirds. The game features three NHL draft picks (Firebird defensemen Fedor Gordeev and Jalen Smereck and Spitfire goalie Michael DiPetro) and all three had a hand in the eventual outcome.

Knowing they were NHL draft picks, I kept an eye on Gordeev and Smereck during the game. I get why they were drafted. Gordeev had the size of an NHL defenseman, and his game had a calmness and poise in the anarchy of the game. Smooth skating, he was always in position and his physicality was aptly demonstrated when he delivered a monstrous check on a Windsor player trying to get by him at the blueline against the boards. Smereck too, exhibits traits of a higher level of skill. He logged the most ice time of any defenseman in the game, and is frequently head manning the puck out of his own zone. In the tradition of minor league sports, today is Super Hero Sunday, a promotion gimmick to draw people to the game. In that vein, the Spitfires are dressed in special super hero themed uniforms, complete with a comic bookesque chest emblem and implied cape on their jerseys. 

The game begins with a quick goal, a semi-wrap around that the Flint goalie overplays, and Windsor takes a 1-0 lead. That goal would stand up for the entire game, as Micheal DiPietro shows why the Canucks drafted him. He gets the shutout. There were several spectacular saves by both goalies, notable because, looking at the Firebird’s stat sheet, defense was not their forte. As in most 1-0 games, it’s a goaltending duel. The crowd of about 4500 are entuhusiastic, with many cowbells and horn noises that sound as if they were ill Star Wars aliens. Michelle calls me with about 8 minutes left in the third, which tells me that she didn’t do well at the casino. She hangs in the parking lot until the game is over, and then Csaba and I meet her and we head back to the States. The weather is cloudy and gray. There is so much fog on the river we literally cannot see Detroit.

Csaba with his poutine

There was something very Canadian about this experience, as if we were watching a minor league baseball game in a charming ballpark somewhere in the United States. Instead of apple pie, however, we had that Canadian classic, poutine. It works for hockey. It works very well.

Go see a game there.

Game #6 – University of Michigan Wolverines v. Penn State Nittany Lions – Big Ten Conference - Yost Ice Arena - Ann Arbor, Michigan

When I rail against Michigan Stadium as the most uncomfortable, overrated sporting venue in existence (seating capacity: 107,601, comfortable seating capacity: about 75,000) I am often accused of being biased against all things UM and an argument for such could be made. However, I blow that theory out of the water when I reply that, in fact, one of the central ironies of my life is that my favorite hockey arena in the world, Yost Ice Arena, is also the home of one my most hated hockey rivals, the University of Michigan Wolverines.

Yes, it is my fate that, in order to enjoy a game at Yost, I must endure a three hour celebration of my rival, that, when they are winning, is a veritable hell on Earth for me, with the hundreds of the ubiquitous maize (i.e. yellow) Michigan hockey jerseys acting as symbolic flames of hell in which I am burning.  The upside to this whole thing is that it has led to some of the most delicious hockey moments I have ever experienced, namely Michigan State hockey victories that have quieted these fanatical fans. Twice, I’ve seen the Spartans win 1-0 over the Wolverines at Yost, one of the shutouts backstopped by Ryan Miller, a future Hobey Baker Trophy winner in college and Vezina Trophy winner in the NHL. The other was in 2008 by Jeff Lerg, the hero of the 2007 MSU national championship, in a game where I was the guest of Jim Hunt, then the radio color commentator for UM hockey. Having gone in courtesy of Jim’s media pass, I had no seat, so I ended up standing with scouts from the LA Kings and Ottawa Senators for that game. The greatest tie game I ever saw was at Yost, with Spartans scoring the tying marker with 1.9 seconds remaining. Drew Miller, a future Red Wing and brother of the aforementioned Ryan, scored that one. There are, as the old hockey saying goes, good ties and bad ties, and that tie was so good it felt like a blowout win.

Red Berenson

My first game here was in 1996. Not knowing anything about the traditions there, the experience blew me away. I was 9 months away from declaring my college hockey allegiance to Michigan State, so, for a moment in time, I was (gulp) a fan of UM hockey. After entering law school at Michigan State, and then dating (and eventually marrying) an Ohio State Buckeye, my short time as a UM hockey fan was forever over, like an embarrassing love tryst from the past that you would rather not talk about. Michigan won the national championship that year, and again two years later. The program has more NCAA national championships (9) than any other school, the majority of which were won between 1948 and 1964. The touchstone figure for the program is Red Berenson, who played for UM and was one of the first collegiate players to play in the NHL. He was a good NHL player, mainly for the Canadiens, Blues and Red Wings, once even scoring 6 goals in one game. He coached in the NHL for a time, even winning the Jack Adams Trophy, until, in 1984, he returned to Ann Arbor to coach his alma mater. He brought the team to new heights, having several near misses in NCAA tournament games until finally winning in 1996 and 1998. He retired after last season as one of the best college coaches ever, and the rink in Yost is called The Red Berenson Rink. I actually pass him in the concourse in the game tonight, and we see him later hanging out in a suite. I wonder if he misses coaching or if he can actually watch a game without getting stressed about it. Mel Pearson, a longtime Berenson assistant, is now the coach, arriving after a successful stint at Michigan Tech.

Tonight, UM’s opponent is not the Spartans, but rather the Penn State Nittany Lions, a program only in its 6^th year of NCAA Division I. They are the defending Big Ten Champions, building an impressive resume for a young program. This is the first time I’ve seen PSU play, and the first thing I notice is their uniform. Modeled off their iconic football uniform, the entire outfit is navy blue with a white helmet. The UM uniforms are simple and effective, and the helmets, like Penn State, are modeled after the famous winged UM football helmets that Fritz Crisler brought with him from Princeton in 1938.  The uniforms are simple and pure. In hockey, when it comes to uniforms, less is more.

Though now perfectly suited to the task, Yost wasn’t always an ice arena. When it was built in 1923, it was the nation’s first indoor field house, hosting track and field events and basketball games. Named after the legendary UM football coach Fielding Yost, the building has been the home to UM hockey since 1973, and, after a series of renovations, (the last completed is 2012) it serves as the home of UM hockey. The building makes the most of its historic architectural heritage while providing the spectator with all the amenities that one could want. One of these renovations involved the addition of a second tier of club sets that virtually hang over the sidelines of the ice. Although I have never sat there, these seats have to be the best in the hockey world, a bucket list item for me.  Tonight, our seats are behind the UM goal, and I am here with my longtime friend Chris (a UM alumus, sporting a UM jersey no less) and another friend, Csaba, an Ohio State alumnus who has similar feelings about the team and rink that I do.

The Children of Yost and the Pep Band

As the game begins, and the teams battle, the traditions at Yost, mostly distinct chants by the lively student section, dubbed “The Children of Yost”, begin to come forth. The chants are often humorous and clever. Opposing players being penalized are treated to serenade of one long monotone vocal until the exact moment he steps into the penalty box, in which he is given a synchronized “See Ya” from the student section. More than once, I’ve seen opposing players try to fake out the students by stepping in and out of the box to wreck the timing of the cheer. There are chants about the goalie’s mother calling to say that he sucks. When a goal is scored by Michigan, not long after the resulting center ice face off, the students count, in unison, the number of goals that Michigan has with the backing a bass drum beat for each count (“on two, three, four!”) and then saying they want “mooooooooore goals!” The opposing goalie is then repeatedly called a sieve and told that it is all his fault. My favorite is when the opposing goalie lifts his mask to take a swig from his water bottle. “Ugly Goalie!” is the chorus for that event. Things got a little out of hand some years back, specifically with the addition of an obscenity laced secondary chant by the student section after the “see ya” chant described earlier. Despite pleas from university and hockey officials to stop, the Children of Yost persisted in using this chant, prompting university officials to move the pep band next to the student section and direct them to immediately play before the expletives fly to drown them out. I noticed during the game that seems to be working.

In the game tonight, Penn State comes out fast, befitting a team that leads the NCAA in shots on goal and overall scoring. Some timely saves by UM goalie Hayden Lavigne, starting his fifth consecutive game, kept the game from opening up early, and Michigan counterattacks yields a 1-0 lead. The goal energizes the Wolverines, and they never give the offensive minded Nittany Lions enough time with the puck to make a play. When Lavigne stops a breakway in the second period, so went the best of Penn State’s scoring chances, and the goal scored in the first turns out to be the winner. The Children of Yost went home happy on the heels of a 4-0 UM win.

I suffer the occasional indignities of UM traditions because the overall quality of the venue outweighs being annoyed by the UM fans. There are other college rinks that have coordinated student chants and oversized pep bands, but none of them are in a 1920’s field house with elaborate brickwork, arched windows, gambrel steel beam ceilings, with acoustics that act to energize the atmosphere into something special. At Yost, this combination of architecture, tradition and atmosphere converge to elevate the game of hockey in a way that no other arena that I have ever been in can do.

It is a special place.

Go see a game there.

Game #5 – Detroit Red Wings v. Dallas Stars – National Hockey League - Little Caesar's Arena - Detroit, Michigan

These are not the best of times for the Detroit Red Wings. After 25 years of dominance in the standings, numerous division and conference titles, Hall of Fame players, thrilling playoff runs, and four Stanley Cups, the cupboard has finally run bare. This is not wholly unexpected or unprecedented, as all great teams eventually hit the skids, a by-product of the temporary nature of professional sports, hockey included. In this era of NHL hockey, the salary cap and extra point for shootout wins create a league of parity, where there are a few clear cut elite teams, a few clear cut lousy teams, and a glut of team in-between. 16 teams will make the playoffs, 15 will not, and many of the haves and have nots will not be decided until the very last days of the regular season. When I started watching hockey, 16 of 21 teams went into the playoffs.

Yes, rest assured, the Red Wings will be on the outside looking in at playoff time. Not only will they miss the playoffs, without an infusion of some decent talent, they will likely be lousy for the next few years. Ken Holland, the GM since 1997, has won three Stanley Cups, but his performance in the salary cap era has been poor. He has too many underwhelming players that are overpaid by contract with terms that are too long, making them virtually untradeable. Holland has been reluctant for a complete rebuild, preferring to try and rebuild on the fly, which he did successfully in the past. But this time, there is no young Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg coming into their primes with the greatest defenseman of his generation, Nicklas Lidstriom, playing behind them. With Datsyuk and Lidstrom gone, and Zetterberg at an age when athletes rapidly decline, there will be no rebuilding on the fly. Instead, they must embrace their ineptitude, win as few games as possible, and put themselves in a position to draft Rasmus Dahlin, a potential franchise defenseman and certain first overall pick in this year’s amateur draft. Thus, the only question is whether the Wings can get back quickly or will we have to endure another Dead Wings era.

Tonight, in the brand new Little Caesar’s Arena, the evidence of the teams’s demise is stark and in plain view, as the Red Wings only muster a pathetic 14 shots on goal in a 4-2 loss to the Dallas Stars. The Stars’ general manager, Jim Nill, a former Red Wing, apprenticed under Holland as an assistant GM. His team is now leading its division, as do the Tampa Bay Lightning, managed by another Holland protégé, Red Wings Hall of Famer Steve Yzerman. The game tonight, to me, is a clear indicator that the Wings are not going anywhere fast, nor anywhere soon. There are some parts in place: Dylan Larkin and Anthony Mantha both have excellent potential. Andrea Athanasiou is a dynamic player. Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist can score. Jim Howard is a solid, albeit aging, NHL goalie. Beyond that, there’s not much to write home about. The third and fourth lines are awful, and there is no top four defensemen on the team at all. And of the aforementioned awful players, several have no trade clauses. Lacking the skills or the enthusiastic cash resource advantage of Mike Illitch to attract talent as he had in the past, Holland could only overpay market rates and offer the security of term of contract with no-trade clauses to convince players to come here. In giving these horrible contracts, Holland violated the cardinal rule of any general manager in any sport: Never overvalue your team’s talent. The signs are that Holland, along with coach Jeff Blashill, once considered a rising star in the coaching world, are likely gone after the season.

While the action on the ice is uninspired, the new arena is dynamic and fantastic. Compared to the dingy, old Joe Louis Arena, the new LCA is shiny, state of the art and beautiful. The concourse is huge, well themed and there are reminders of Red Wing history everywhere. Even though the Red Wings share the arena with the Detroit Pistons, this is clearly a Red Wings first arena, judging from the décor and theming of the concourse and interior. I sit in the lower bowl with my friends Craig, Rick and Chuck, and the amount of empty seats in this new shrine is disheartening. The Wings have tried to explain this away by saying many fans hang out in the bars and restaurants in the arena, or many are wandering around on their first visit to check the place out. While I’m sure there’s some truth to this, the Red Wings of today are providing little reason to visit the place or sit in the seats and watch the game.  The good news is that I still had a great time. The hockey gods shined upon me, granting me great seats, a nice dinner (all compliments of Chuck) and I even won a free pizza. It was a partial payback for all of the people I took to JLA when we had season tickets there.

 

This arena is the finest of the 15 NHL arenas I have been in. The sightlines are excellent, compliments of the steep bowls. There is an organ, a classical accompaniment to the game, and here, at LCA, you can get right up close to the player, a gentleman who has been playing since he was three years old. There are seats and bars everywhere all under the watchful eye of crowd control employees who seem to be everywhere. Go see Little Caesar’s Arena.

Predictably, the skill of the players at this level represent the best in the world, above any previous league I have visited in The Month of Hockey. Even with this apparent, the game is still the game: Twisting, turning, forward, backward. This way, that way, with no pattern. There is an unhuman speed of movement from the players, moving on skates faster than any human could without them, and the puck moving faster than anything else on the ice. Moving, acting, reacting, a violent dance with the opposition. As in life, there are goals, and saves, and new chances after failures. Hockey, at any level, is a beautiful thing.

"Baseball is America’s game. It is planned and    orderly, the action starts and stops, and every next moment seems a brand new chance. Effort matters; skill matters more. Time is slow – you only move when you are ready. The game goes on until a winner is declared. Time is infinite. The game could go on forever. Hockey is messy and confused. Its action rarely stops. One moment runs into the next, and its past lives on in its present and future. Skill matters, effort matters as much, time matters more. Time is finite. A game must end. Time is short and beyond control. Baseball is a game of the imagination, a mythical game. It is a demonstration of life as we might wish it to be. Hockey is real life."  - Ken Dryden

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Tonight's Game Postponed

Our plans to attend a game tonight were postponed due to the death of our good friend, Bruce Hoffman. You will be missed and never forgotten. 

Game #4 – Michigan State Spartans v. The Ohio State Buckeyes – Big Ten Conference - Munn Ice Arena - East Lansing, Michigan

I had season tickets to the Michigan State Hockey Spartans in the late 90’s, when I was in law school there. At that time, the Spartans were in the midst of regular season home sell out streak that would eventually reach 323 games. Coach Ron Mason had assembled a tremendous team, the likes of which hasn't not been seen in East Lansing since. One of the greatest hockey games I ever saw, a 5-4 comeback win over Michigan (then the defending NCAA champions and ranked #1 in the nation), was at Munn. When Ron Mason won his 800^th career game in 1998, also against the hated Wolverines, I was one of the hundred or so students who went on the ice with a paper “800” sign to salute our living legend coach. I was even on ESPN for about half a second. I went to several GLI and CCHA games the Spartans played at Joe Louis Arena and even traveled to Columbus to see them play the Buckeyes in their old, decrepit rink. Tonight, I am at Munn with my friend Csaba, an OSU alumnus and huge hockey fan. My wife Michelle, another rabid OSU alumus, declined to make the trip due to the extreme cold weather. Michigan State University’s hockey program is, their fans hope, on an upward trend. Tonight, against a very good Ohio State University hockey team, there were flashes of greatness of a program in the midst of change. 

The Michigan State and Ohio State hockey teams are charter members of the Big Ten Hockey conference, formed in 2013 when Penn State instituted a varsity hockey program after a wealthy donor gave millions to build a facility for the team to play in. Prior to that, the Spartans and Buckeyes played in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) a motley conference of teams from Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and even Alaska. Munn Ice Arena, named after the legendary Michigan State head football coach Biggie Munn, has been the home for MSU hockey since 1974. For most of those years, the team was coached by Ron Mason, one of the greatest hockey minds of his era at any level of the hockey world. Mason was the all time winningest coach in college hockey history when he retired in 2002 to become the school’s athletic director, and the vast majority of those wins came during his time at Michigan State.
 

Indeed, Mason’s arrival and departure were the two seminal moments in MSU hockey history. For most of Mason’s tenure, the Spartans were a perennial college hockey powerhouse, winning numerous league regular season playoff titles, NCAA tournament appearances, a national championship in 1986, and narrowly missing another in 1987. There were two Hobey Baker winners, numerous All-Americans and NHL draft picks. His hand picked successor, the former Northern Michigan Hockey coach Rick Comley, carried on the winning tradition for a while, even winning a national championship in 2007. The 2007 championship was decidedly not an indication of MSU being a perennial winning program, as the team rode a hot goalie and timely goal scoring to win the school’s third national championship. Comley could not capitalize on the success of that campaign, and, after a string of losing seasons, he unceremoniously retired in 2011, much to the approval of the MSU hockey fandom.
 

MSU athletic director Mark Hollis then hired Tom Anastos, the commissioner of the CCHA, to coach the team. Anastos, a former Spartan who played under Mason, was well respected in college hockey circles as an administrator, but had very limited coaching experience. Hollis had a track record of innovation and the move, given Anastos’ reputation as a great hockey man, made some sense at the time. Hollis was the main force behind the first major outdoor hockey game, played at Spartan Stadium in 2001 (appropriately dubbed “The Cold War” for I froze my ass off at the game) and was always thinking outside the box to bring Spartan athletics into prominence. But, unlike his wildly successful hire of Mark Dantonio, Anastos proved to be a disaster, and the hockey program went out of the frying pan and into the fire. Perhaps reading the writing on the wall, he resigned his post in 2017 after the team won only 7 games the entire season. Mason had died unexpectedly the summer before the season started, and the funeral was at Munn, his casket at center ice. With the MSU football and basketball teams enjoying great success, there was a noticeable pall over the hockey program.
 

 

Enter Danton Cole, a Spartan hockey alumnus who played 318 games in the NHL, winning the Stanley Cup with New Jersey in 1995. Cole was hired after coaching the USA NTDP (see Month of Hockey game #2) where he had produced some impressive teams. He called coaching MSU his dream job, and the move was met with near universal approval from Spartan hockey fans, including me. This season, despite losing many upperclassmen, including their leading scorer from last season, Cole’s team had already won more games by Christmas than the team did under Anastos the entire season before.

 I walk into Munn on this extraordinarily cold evening and the memories come flooding back. Of games remembered but mostly forgotten, of Mason behind the bench, of my friend Becker (a frequent companion to these games), and of Michelle, since Munn is where we had one of our first dates. I even went into Munn one summer afternoon in 1999 when I was taking the bar exam next door at the Breslin Center. I was hot, mentally and physically exhausted, and had one more three-hour session before the exam was complete. I wandered into Munn during the lunch break and it was like a Zen garden. The rink was deserted, cool from the year round ice, and quiet. I was able to mentally regroup, physically cool down, and focus. It was a comfortable, familiar place to be in in the midst of the proverbial war that is the bar exam. I passed, so perhaps my little rally inside Munn played a part in that.

 Munn has changed tremendously since I was a student here. Upper level press boxes and suites were built, and the scoreboard is now current, rather than vintage. We are sitting in almost the exact spot where my student season tickets were, a delightful happenstance. Despite my desires to get up to East Landing to see a game as often as I can, it had been three or four years since I’ve been here. The flip side of that is going to Munn is now a special experience, one that, win or lose, I enjoy.  But I badly want MSU to win. They are on a three game losing streak, including an ugly loss to Michigan, squandering a two goal lead. Tonight, MSU gets on the board first, but Ohio State, having an excellent season (ranked 8^th nationally), eventually ties it, and the teams are even going into the third period. The crowd at Munn, historically quiet during games, is low key again with the student section empty, a casualty of the school’s Christmas break. In fact, the pep band, playing the same, somewhat tired songs that I heard 20 years ago when I was a regular here, is composed of alumni. OSU pulls ahead with a three-goal spurt in the third period, and MSU would score another to cut the deficit to two, but that would be it. 
Final score: 5-3 Ohio State.

No matter. For the Spartans, this is a year of transition. Danton Cole has work to do, but his record of success is a promising indicator of what is to come. I’m confident that in the next two or three years, Ron Mason, wherever he is, will be pleased.