For older fans- televised games in Detroit in late 70's, early 80s

[thegreat66 19]

Just a question I suppose more for the sake of nostalgia. Was talking to a friend about watching Penguins in late 70s, early 80s. I was very young but as I remember things it was not too often you would get a game on TV. At best I would say 1 in 4 games were televised, perhaps 1 in 5. I believe the Pens were done by a local cable channel at the time. Anyway, just curious if it was a similar situation in Detroit during that era. I don't know why but I've always been nostalgic about that era even though the Pens basically stunk.

[LeftWinger 5,154]

I cannot recall how many games were actually televised (since I was only 10 in 1980) I do remember before PASS sports we only had Channel 50 for the games. I do remember when watching one of my first ever Wings game, I kept looking for this guy named Kowalski on the Wings, because the annoucer mentioned his name a few times, I actually rememerb saying out loud, "Get it Kowalski!" not even knowin which guy it was, only to find out it was Kowalski Sausage (one of the sponsors.) Must have been a powerplay or penalty kill sponsered by Kowalski or someothing like that...

[thegreat66 19]

I cannot recall how many games were actually televised (since I was only 10 in 1980) I do remember before PASS sports we only had Channel 50 for the games. I do remember when watching one of my first ever Wings game, I kept looking for this guy named Kowalski on the Wings, because the annoucer mentioned his name a few times, I actually rememerb saying out loud, "Get it Kowalski!" not even knowin which guy it was, only to find out it was Kowalski Sausage (one of the sponsors.) Must have been a powerplay or penalty kill sponsered by Kowalski or someothing like that...

LOL- great sory Left Winger. You're a couple years older than me so I grew up in same era.

[beepbeep 3]

Remember listening to a lot of games on the radio before they came up with PASS.. I have very fond memories of PASS, NO commercials, between periods they interviewed players. Between PASS and channel 50 you could watch pretty much every single game, Wings, Tigers, Lions or Pistons and if you paid for the full year up front it was $89.00........ Saved my sanity while I was transferred to Toledo for 2 yrs during the 80s...........

[oldredbarnman 13]

I have a couple of old Red Wing Media Guides from the early 70s. In 73-74, and 74-75, the Wings were on Ch. 50 about 28 times in each season.( Budd Lynch and Larry Adderly doing the play-by-play and color commentary.) Basically the beginning of the "Dead Wings" era. In the 78/79 season, after getting this area all fired up with it's 1st playoff appearance in 8 seasons the previous year, 29 games were televised.(Again according to the 78/79 media guide) Unfortunately, the losing ways continued. With the possibility of it being the last game at Olympia Stadium, WKBD broadcast a rare home game on April 8, 1979. The fans who came out that night braved a nasty icestorm, but the Wings didn't disappoint as they beat Montreal 1-0. This was the last of the great Montreal teams that won 4 straight cups. Ken Dryden played his last regular season game, and Scotty coached his last regular season game for the Habs. Jimmy Rutherford was named the #1 star. (I have a copy of this game on DVD, and I also was at the game)

The Joe wasn't ready as the 79-80 season began. The Wings would play their first 12 home games at the "Old Red Barn" before moving to JLA. 23 road games were televised, plus select home games were shown on ON-TV, a pay station that was used at night on WXON Channel 20. This is the year Mickey Redmond began his broadcasting career. About 7 of the last 12 games at Olympia were broadcast. (But not the last one, a 4-4 tie against Jacques Demers and the Quebec Nordiques on December 15th. Wings came back from a 4-0 deficit, with Greg Joly scoring the tieing goal late in the 3rd. The Barn was rockin' that night)

By 1983/84, only 15 games were shown on regular TV, plus the 4 playoff games the Wings played against St. Louis. PASS sports started showing home games in 84 or 85. In 1986/87, 14 games were shown on Ch. 50, and 29 on PASS. Hard to imagine, with every game on TV these days, what a treat it really was to have a Wings game on, back when I started watching in the early 70s.

[Guest micah]

Growing up in Wisconsin, I had to rely the Betamax tapes of Wings games that my Uncle would send after every game (dubbed off Pass Sports, natch) to get my Wings fix. That was only 20-25 years ago. Makes your head spin when you think about how technology has progressed since.

[Guest micah]

I have a couple of old Red Wing Media Guides from the early 70s. In 73-74, and 74-75, the Wings were on Ch. 50 about 28 times in each season.( Budd Lynch and Larry Adderly doing the play-by-play and color commentary.) Basically the beginning of the "Dead Wings" era. In the 78/79 season, after getting this area all fired up with it's 1st playoff appearance in 8 seasons the previous year, 29 games were televised.(Again according to the 78/79 media guide) Unfortunately, the losing ways continued. With the possibility of it being the last game at Olympia Stadium, WKBD broadcast a rare home game on April 8, 1979. The fans who came out that night braved a nasty icestorm, but the Wings didn't disappoint as they beat Montreal 1-0. This was the last of the great Montreal teams that won 4 straight cups. Ken Dryden played his last regular season game, and Scotty coached his last regular season game for the Habs. Jimmy Rutherford was named the #1 star. (I have a copy of this game on DVD, and I also was at the game)

The Joe wasn't ready as the 79-80 season began. The Wings would play their first 12 home games at the "Old Red Barn" before moving to JLA. 23 road games were televised, plus select home games were shown on ON-TV, a pay station that was used at night on WXON Channel 20. This is the year Mickey Redmond began his broadcasting career. About 7 of the last 12 games at Olympia were broadcast. (But not the last one, a 4-4 tie against Jacques Demers and the Quebec Nordiques on December 15th. Wings came back from a 4-0 deficit, with Greg Joly scoring the tieing goal late in the 3rd. The Barn was rockin' that night)

By 1983/84, only 15 games were shown on regular TV, plus the 4 playoff games the Wings played against St. Louis. PASS sports started showing home games in 84 or 85. In 1986/87, 14 games were shown on Ch. 50, and 29 on PASS. Hard to imagine, with every game on TV these days, what a treat it really was to have a Wings game on, back when I started watching in the early 70s.

Please post more. I have never seen a better post on LGW.

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

Great post!

I don't know if this happened in the same era, but my Uncle told me that when Sid Abel used to do the "colour" for the games on tv, you were never quite sure if it was the same game that you were watching.

And WXON... that was the "box", wasn't it? I remember seeing a news report about the RCMP investigating a claim by WXON that an electronics store in Windsor that was selling the "box" illegally. There findings: no laws were being broken.

[oldredbarnman 13]

WXON was a UHF station that did one or two seasons of Red Wings hockey in the late 70s or early 80s. When ON-TV came to town, I believe in 1978, it would show movies, concerts and sporting events after 8 pm. When you signed up, you got a small atenna and a de-scrambler box. It was the first "cable" channel for us in Westland. So at 8 o'clock, the signal would be scrambled, and On-TV would take over. Unless it was a hockey or baseball game, then it would change over for those. I wish I still had the monthly tv guides they would send out.

As for Sid, he was the best. Like George Kell, he had a voice that we all tried to imitate. In between periods at Olympia, I, and sometimes a friend would run upstairs to the radio booth, wait for Bruce and/or Sid to come out for a break, and get their autographs. Super nice guys.

Sid did colour with Bruce from 1977-1985 or 86. He was very knowledgable, and really was just as good as Mickey when describing goals and plays. He and Bruce even got a letter from Wings' management, in 1979 I think, admonishing them for be critical of the team. They may have been homers, but they had no problem telling it like it was.

Just before the Olympia was demolished, many people, myself included, went back to have one last look. Memorial Day weekend 1986. We all got seats, and some other momentos of that great building. Went up in the press box, walked along the catwalks, which angled up to support the roof. Even drank some beer in there. Still have the seats too. I only saw games there for the last year and a half, but just being in that building was awesome. Saw Bobby Orr score his final NHL goal there, October 28th, 1978. Wayne Gretzky and Ray Borque both played one game there their rookie season of 1979-80. Wings won both games. The very last game was the 1979-80s Wings against Red Wing oldtimers in Feb 1980. Gordie scored the very last goal, as the current Wings won 6-2.

Fortunately, I have some of those old games still, and love going back in time to the days of my youth. The game sure has changed over the years.

[oldredbarnman 13]

I just found the newspaper article of the last game at Olympia. Sunday December 16, 1979

The headline reads, "WINGS TIE IN OLYMPIA FAREWELL"

Article is written by Bill McGraw, Detroit Free Press Sports Writer

The Red Wings sank to the occasion of Olympia's last National Hockey League game ever Saturday night by tying the Quebec Nordiques, 4-4, in front of a high-energy crowd of 15, 609.

The fans came to the 1,790th NHL contest in the scruffy redbrick building armed with banners(such as "Thanks for 7 cups and 52 years of memories"), boat horns, toilet paper, eggs and fish.

Much of the garbage ended up on the ice during the game, delaying play many times.

The fans stood several deep in every available nook and cranny. They arrived early, took pictures and swapped rememberances of great games past.

They lingered after the game had ended, booed the mention of Joe Louis Arena on the Olympia p.a., and listened to the organist play "Auld Lang Syne."

And they saw the Wings play a disorganized style of hockey for two periods, in which the expansion Nordiques--playing their first ever game in Olympia----surged ahead on four unanswered goals.

Richard Leduc, Garry Lariviere, Michel Goulet and Reg Thomas scored for the players with the fleur-de-lis on their pale blue uniforms.

For most of those two periods, goalie Rogie Vachon was left on his own to fend off numerous Nordique forays into the Detroit zone.

The Wings finally got on the board at 19:15 of the second stanza, thanks to Dan Bolduc, whose earlier scoring chance was foiled by Gerry Hart, who was off for holding the speedy Bolduc when the Wings finally broke the ice.

Then the Wings got the message that the crowd was here to scream and yell and they exploded for 20 shots in the third period against Sweden native Goran Hogosta, while holding Quebec to just two.

Errol Thompson popped in Willie Huber's slapshot rebound at 6:58 on another power play. The goal ignited the fans into Stanley Cup hysteria and noise, and the fun continued when Vaclav Nedomansky pocketed his 20th of the year less than one minute later.

Geg Joly tied it with a backhand at 18:35, but that was all the Wings could manage.

The tie is their second in a row, coming after Thursday's 6-6 game in Boston.

The Wings play a TV game Sunday in Chicago (Channel 50), then play three more road games until their Dec. 27 Joe Louis Arena opener.

As for Olympia, officials there are still discussing a possible sale with Wayne State University, but nothing has been decided.

RED WINGS 4, NORDIQUES 4

Quebec 3 1 0---4

Detroit 0 1 3---4

1st--1, Quebec, Leduc 10 (Baxter) 1:50

2, Quebec, Lariviere 2 (Baxter, Thomas) 11:26

3, Quebec, Goulet 8 (Fitchner,Plante) 17:56

Penalties-Goulet, Que. 7:36; Larson, Det., 9:35; Lacroix, Que., 17:56

2nd--4, Quebec, Thomas 1 (Ro. Cloutier) 2:30

5, Detroit, Bolduc 3 (Huber, Nedomansky) 19:15

Penalties- Stewart, Que., major, 4:10; Foligno, Det., major, 4:10; Long, Det., 6:04; Lariviere, Que., 6:18; Huber, Det., 7:59; Hart, Que., 18:54

3rd--6 Detroit, Thompson 12 (Huber, Larson)

7 Detroit, Nedomansky 20 (Joly, Huber) 7:44

8 Detroit, Joly 2 (Woods) 18:15

Penalties- Plante, Que., two minors, 3:31; Larson, Det., 3:31; Huber, Det., 12:54

SHOTS- Quebec 10-8-2--20

Detroit 9-8-20-37

A---15,609

A side note--- I was one of the many who littered the ice that night. I sat in one of the Hi-Boxes, which was above the mezzanine level. When the Wings tied the game at 4, the crowd went absoluetly wild. I got caught up in all of the excitement of the moment. I threw a crushed beer cup, the older waxed cardboard ones that were used back then, and fired it down, just missing the goalie. The cup landed on top of the Quebec net. The game was stopped for 10-15 minutes ( or more) while the crowd littered the ice, and the subsequent cleanup.

[OsGOD 3]

oh the memories.... PASS and channel 50!

then they introduced they pay-per-view games which blew. but we found out that if we changed our tv to Channel 4 and then changed the cable box to one number up from the ppv channel we could see it pretty decently. still snow but you could still see it

[oldredbarnman 13]

oh the memories.... PASS and channel 50!

then they introduced they pay-per-view games which blew. but we found out that if we changed our tv to Channel 4 and then changed the cable box to one number up from the ppv channel we could see it pretty decently. still snow but you could still see it

That's hilarious. Wish I would've known that. I did buy a few of those games, at what, $10 a game? Then a friend got ahold of a cheater box, and I watched some for free at his house. The one I did buy was the game in Boston, when there was a post grame free-for-all, and Stevie got punched by a Bruin's fan.

[Johnny Diamonds 25]

In the early 80's in Metro Detroit before PASS sports, Ch.50 WKBD had Wings games on. You could also catch Wings games on CBC Hockey Night in Canada whenever they played the Leafs or other Canadian teams. Also if I'm not mistaken either Global(CAN) or CTV(CAN) had some NHL games on as well.