T.Low

Its damn near time to put together a Datsyuk Hits Highlight video! He must be talking to Ovechkin a lot these days or something.

Links here too, please!

Links for the online outta town fans, please, anyone?

Uh, sure, really. Why not? So you think Zetterberg will catch him. Where will he pass him, 475? 485?. 425?

Suh-wheeeeet! Way to go, Ice! Merry Christmas, Comrad!

Great post. Brings up two questions: 1. Will Lidstrom catch Delvecchio for 3rd all time? 2. Who will reach 500 first, Homer or Zetterberg?

You yourself are a good point: how many NCSonics fans were there? Probably one or two people that moved from Seattle to NC. The Wings do get great national and international support as shown on this website. Yes, it is highly unlikely that it will ever happen, but it certainly could happen. If you would have asked back in the '80s if General Motors would ever have to go to the Federal Government for a financial bailout, you would have said no way. Point being, don't take your favorite Detroit Red Wings for granted, enjoy every game, every interview, savor every victory, because it is a business, and in the world of business, you just never know.

...(long silence)...

Thats good point, thanks.

An OT loss in the playoffs is not a point, its one step closer to a tee time. OK, BFG, I forgot about that 1 goal game. My point is, the Cancks have a lot of tenacity and they are now gaining confidence against the Wings. Its a ligitimate concern, whats with the attitude?

We could easily wind up playing the Canucks in round one. They've beaten us twice already, we haven't beaten them at all yet. Memories of first round dismissals. Just saying...

Thanks, caught that too after I re read it. Made the change.

Good point. You make an obvious and accurate statement: "The Wings can't expect to win The Cup again if they can't compete with the high level teams". It is tougher to repeat as champion than it is to win the championship the to began with. As I said before, to be the best, you have to beat the best; but to stay the best, you have to beat everyone at thier best. Each of the teams you listed are measuring themselves against Detroit, trying to prove they are for real. Everyone wants to knock off the Champs, every single night. Those teams are up and coming talented teams reach a level of intensity against Detroit that they usally aren't able to muster against most other teams. See Vancouver also. Night in and night out, Detroit has to play aginst teams that are out of their minds becasue they get to play aginst the historic Stanley Cup Champs. Like how NFL teams usually play their best on Monday Night Football cause the whole league is watching. Thats what it like playing aginst The Red Wings. In turn, the Wings need to raise their level of intensity to shut down these rabid teams. And lets face it, we all knew how awesome Zetterberg and Datsyuk were, but not everyone else did. Z had a bit of a break out year last year, as did Franzen, and Cleary. Those guys are on other teams radar now. That is precisely why the Wings experienced a series of early round playoff dismissals. I'm hoping that somewhere this season they face some true adversity to motivate them and get their blood pumping, raising their level of intensity. Hossa is likely here for only this year, and I'd hate to see this opportunity wasted. Go Wings!

Yes there is: How does that relate to the OP question of "Could they ever move?" Of course they could. Most likely won't happen, but nothing stays the same forever. I just watched the unlikely event of the Seattle Supersonics move to frikin Oaklahoma City. The Sonics have been a staple of Seattle sports for over 40 years, including a championship. Owned by a Seattle guy worth twice as much as ilitch. It all happenned in less than a year. Don't get mad at me for pointing out the obvious. Remember the Los Angles Rams? The biggest market in all of Pro football with no team now...hmmm. Things happen, its business. Lets hope it never happens in Detroit.

as long as its not the overrated Dion Phakueff!

Exactly. Who gives a s*** if the pizza industry is good, its not the kids that make the pizzas that buy all the18,000 Red Wing tickets every night, its the people that work in the auto industry. Illitch doesn't take pizza money and pay Lidstrom with it. He takes the money made from the Red Wings, with the vast majority of it from ticket sales. ANd BTW, Little Ceasars has closed 2,000 restaurants since the early 90's and has dropped to fourth place behind Pizza Hut, Dominos and Papa Johns. And its not the guys that just lost $1,000 at Motor City Casino (Another Illitch company) thats gonna buy tickets either. The Red Wings were at a $16million operating loss just before the lockout. Mike Illitch is going to be 80 years old next July. I doubt that Chris Illitch would ever move the team he grew up with...but stranger things have happened. Who knows what goes on at Illitch Holdings, Inc. And Michigan's evconomy is NEVER going to be what it was under Engler, NEVER AGAIN. Of course there is a chance of them moving someday, don't be such Homer's, my God, man. Denial aint just a river in Egypt ya know. Of course we don't want that to ever happen, it would be a travesty. But the historic Cleveland Browns moved. The historic Brooklyn Dodgers moved, the New York Baseball Giants moved, lots of historic teams move. Bottom line is, to support a pro sports frnachise, you need a population with losts of discretionary income to blow on very expensive entertainment, and Detroit is losing that faster that Rosie Odonnel turns away from a treadmill. It would be a shame, but of course it could happen someday.

Excellent! Bertuzzi's home town is near Toronto and now he can go back for another long term contract at $4.5m per. Good for him! Yes, "shocking" indeed. Never saw it coming. Wow.

I agree, Huds is getting old and needs to retire before Chelios does. This loyalty thing can drag on way too far! 2 regulation losses at the 20 game mark is great.

Last nights CBC broadcast Wings/Flames it was great to hear Crawford and (? this years Shorthouse replacement) talke about the Wings. Yeah, the usual stuff but even more. I sort of thought that Crawford would have a lot of ill will towards the Wings but he had nothing but admiration and great "insider" type thngs to say about them...and I was eating it up. They both said how Detroit practices so hard, and how the verterans really work with the younger guys and tutor them so to speak. These guys get around and see all the teams practice, and they were still stunned at how hard the Wings work during practice. Crawford said Babcock literally had to call Datsyuk off the ice well after practice was over like a mom calling in the little kid cause he won't get off the ice. They both were blown away by how much fun the team has at practice. They practice harder, or atleast as hard as any team) and have more fun. Something tells me Crawfords practices were not all that much fun. I guess its not so much that Crawford talked about how the defensemen all give great stick to stick passes and that is the method of operation in Detroit, but rather it was the way he was so blown away by it, as if he doesn't see how it can be done with more than just one or two guys on your D. A couple times when one of the younger Flame screwed up, Crawford right away said seriously that it was obvious that the kid was intimidated by the watching the Red Wings jersey while he was growing and now has to play against them, and thats something he needs to get over. He talked about how almost every team in the league would love to have Filp as their second line center, talked about that at length, and how in Detroit there's hardly any ice time left for him on the 3rd line. He talked about how many goalies came up thru the system into the NHL too fast and it almost ruined their careers. Made me think of slow the Wings are with their prospects. Great hearing Crawford talk about the incredible logjam of prospects in GR ready to be called up. It was great hearing this stuff from a long time Red Wing competitor, kinda getting the inside scoup of stuff that us Red Wing fans can take for granted. It just made me think of how hard we can be on our team. Detroit fans really do have exceptionally high expectations of the Red Wings. As a side note, Mike Camilleri was on "After Hours" and I was really impressed by him. Haven't seen him before. (I moved outta state before he played for M ). Sounds like a great guy.

Ha, thats funny guys. Yeah I thought he was gonna blow a gasket hollering at Scottie like that. He was pretty young for a coach at that time if I remeber correctly. b.Shanahan, thats halarious! I saw his days as coach just north of me in Vancouver and its definately a pressure cooker there. I tune in the sports talk radio from Vancouver in the middle of JULY for crying out loud and they are still talking hockey all day long. With his experience, I do think he is an asset to HNIC.

While searching for something else, I came across this article about the Brawl written shorty after it happenned, by Dino whatshisname. Never saw it before. http://www.lcshockey.com/issues/66/feature16.asp

Sweet vid, bro, thanks for posting it. When my older brother used to race motocross there was a great racer named Brad Lackey. He had a gumball machine by his pit that said on it, "This is Bad Brad Gum, Chew this Gum and Win!". Everytime I see Stuart hit like that I can't help but yell at the tv "Bad Brad, Chew this Gum and Win!"

I never tire of hearing how great Nick Lidstrom is. Thanks for posting.

Don't be a hater, YG.