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And this is why the red wings were about five years in the hole when steve Yzerman took over.

https://x.com/i/status/1957792169487426043

Isnt 2023 the exact time the $5 hot n ready became the $5.55 hot n ready? I remember bc my family nearly starved that year until we adjusted our pizza budget. Chris Illitch is a monster

You can only hope the apple falls far from the tree.

Actual conversation I had with my son today - had me raging: Him: Yeah dad, I think the Kraken get 60 wins this year Me: HA, foolish child of the emerald city, you speak as if history was a tavern tale. But the scrolls bare not but sorrow for thine ilk. Him: But Matty Beniers is like a really young and faster version of Larkin. Me: I have born witness to ages unending! From Vlad the impaler to Pasha the magic man! In the frost-bitten halls of the Joe we forged centers like sacred blades. Beniers is but a butter knife... Him: Sure, but the Wings havent been good since like 2011. Me: Thou clingeth to a young team! Since then many winters have passed, like sand through an hour glass, and our pool ripens with age. Him: Yeah, but the Kraken are still ahead of you. Me: YOU ARE BUT A CARCASS DECLARING YOURSELF A FEAST. He stopped talking to me after this. Was I too harsh? Too guarded? I feel like I should ground him for his traitorous insolence, but I'm not sure. Honest feedback appreciated.

We only have 2 assistant coaches. Get Feds on the bench.

Lived next to Lil Cs on Grand River at MSU. Would dig through couch cushions and car doors until I had $5. Hot n readys kept me alive. The Illitch family are angels.

That's what I'm saying. It's not clear to me that he'll ever go "all in". I don't think he cares about winning as long as his team is making money.

I don't mind Chris playing the smart hand. It makes sense given the position the Wings are in, and saying no on stamkos was the right call. However it doesnt make much sense to me with the tigers. They were hella games up, and will be losing Skoubal next year. The time to go all in was now IMO. That has me worried we simply have a cheap owner. Sheila Ford is certainly the best owner the Lions have ever had, and credit to her for hiring Campbell and Holmes. Those two are coaching/drafting phenoms. But the Lions are still a young inexpensive team. That changes after this coming season. Will be interesting to see if the Lions truly arent the 'same old lions' and are prepared to spend. They did raise ticket prices to highest in the NFL for this season...

I think of it a lot like playing poker. You play a smart hand over and over and over just to stay in the game and keep yourself competitive, waiting for that moment when you go all in and try to win the whole damn thing. Mike Ilitch wanted to win...badly. So he was never shy about going all in when the time was right. Conversely, Chris plays the smart hand over and over. He's not a bad owner. He knows the right plays because he's been around competent sports management his entire life. But I'm not positive he really wants to win. I think he just wants to make money. That's what doomed the Lions for so long. They sold tickets whether they won or lost so why would they spend any extra to field a winner?

I agree with all this. Checkout what I just posted in the offseason thread. It came to the forefront of my mind because of this 91 thing. Chris is definately treating his clubs like a pure business entity.

I'll just post this here... My buddy's cousin is close friends with Scott Harris, GM of the Detroit Tigers, and my buddy himself has met Harris a few times in the last 2 years, one of those times being very recently... I don't care for baseball, but my bud relayed some interesting tidbits, via Harris, about Yzerman and Chris Illitch to me, so I'll share: >They had an executives only meeting this summer with everyone (Chris + Yzerman + Harris + rando other olympia entertainment execs) via a video zoom call. Apparently, everyone logged into the call dressed in their finest business suits, except Yzerman. He logged in dressed completely casual and proceeded to eat his lunch on camera during the call... my takeaway: The talk about Yzerman being untouchable and not at all worried about speeding up this rebuild or losing his job is absolutely true. This is not the conduct of any exec on even a warm seat lol. Yzerman knows he's never getting fired. >Scott Harris also apparently mentioned he's not exactlyyyyy the biggest fan of Chris Illitch (in a nice way)... the reason being: He's cheap. If anyone has been following the Tigers this year they're really good, but at the TDL Harris was only able to add cheap veteran depth pieces. I guess he was implying that he wanted to make bigger moves, but Chris said no. He also said the team isn't going to be re-signing their best pitcher Skoubal... again because Illitch doesn't want to spend the money. Obviously, this explains a lot of Yzerman's moves, or lack there of. SY may have very well have gotten a hard no on any meaningful trade additions at the last two TDLs from Chris. And there was that rumor of a deal being in place to add Stamkos last summer, but that the deal was nixed by ownership. Maybe we don't have an yzerplan problem... we have an ownership problem. I mean, Mike refused to let Holland tear down and rebuild when it was obviously time to. And now Chris is refusing to add when it's (maybe) time to...

Stop talking to your dog...People will think you're crazy.

Carolina in town that night...

I hate it. Sure he was an amazing player. Nobody is debating that. But he was also a poopy pants baby who left the team to make less money elsewhere because he was butt hurt that he didn't get more accolades (beyond his three Stanley Cups, two Selke's, and one Hart Trophy). Boo hoo. I always liked that for the most part the players in the rafters in Detroit where exceptional players AND great team guys/guys who cherished playing for Detroit. Fedorov was exceptional no doubt, but he never had any great love for Detroit until after the fact. I genuinely don't think this would even be happening if our team didn't suck so much right now. 0/10 Hate it.

Gibson and Edvinsson both need to step up in big ways this year. If that happens, those tiers will look silly.

I don't mind the Hamonic signing, As long as Holl never plays another game for Detroit.

Hampus Tramonic just signed

Red Wings sign Travis Hamonic, To a 1 year $1,000,000 contract. Hopefully a depth signing for GR.

At least it'd be something...

I always found the story of the Japanese mob, the Yakuza, being the founding owners of the lightning interesting and finally dug into the story. >zeigler, the commisioner before bettman, announces he wants to expand the league by 7 teams in the early 90s >phil esposito wants his own team, and thinks he can make one work in Florida >phil collects investors and stages a game in florida to show florida can support a hockey team >game goes great, but phil later discovers the owner of the stadium he used is Karmanos (later and now former owner of the Canes and rival of the illitch family... somethin somethin fedorov and compuware) and Karmanos wants in on phils bid in exchange for lease of his stadium >esposito tells him to pound sand, but now has to build his own arena and thus loses his investors >seeking new investment phil meets a guy who says he can setup him up with wealthy japanese investors who want in >they fly to japan, where high profile business is usually done in honorable boards rooms, but the company he meets with instead take him to a hostess club, which is basically a hooters/borderline strip club >phil is cool with it, and former commissioner zeigler basically does no background checks, because the japanese are offering straight cash and a lot of it >then, through a series of hostile power moves, the jap investors basically force out all the minority owners and take full control of the lightning >it becomes clear the owner of this japanese group may not even exist. He never attends a game, or is even seen or met at all. Never heard from other than by letter. And theres basically no record of his existence in japan. >the japanese run the lightning into the ground both on the ice and financially. And theres many transactions on the books that make little sense (money laundering/washing) >the land developer for the lightning stadium ends up suing the lightning for hundreds of millions. In the lawsuit its revealed the japanese henchman of the owner assigned to oversee the team (a real physical person) has been accused by many japanese businsses of being a gangster. >after running up millions in debt (and likely washing even more money than that) the japanese sell the team and all the japanese involved dissapear off the face of the earth like they never existed Interesting story. The japanese mob ran an NHL franchise as a multi million money laundering scheme.

Yall know me, my track record on prospects is pretty decent... i fought on the slopes and highest peaks to defend the Seider pick and Ty Bertuzzi pick when others doubted. And I bashed guys like Jurco, Cholowski, and Zadina the moment I saw them take GR ice... And if you still have any faith in your old pal #9/CRL/DonHakan/BarkBurgerman/(fake)BlueAdams/Walman6million/Gwinder/ and 100 other names Ive used that I cant remember.... then trust me when I say: This filthy roster needs to be placed into gynecology stirrups, its azzhole braced open, and Jesse Kiiskinen and Max Plante need to be directly inserted like an enema, that will clean out the remaining shidt. Sorry not sorry for that image.

Well played Chris well played From this article https://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/carlos-monarrez/2025/08/20/ilitch-should-have-felt-betrayed-but-fedorov-ceremony-buries-hatchet/85729839007/ "Fedorov was a marvel and watching him was often worth the price of admission alone. And if you want to attend the ceremony in January, you’ll have to pony up because the ticket is part of a five-game package. And it’s only fitting that it comes against the Hurricanes."