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.
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