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HockeytownRules19

Prospect Tourney in Traverse City renamed after Matt Wuest

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Helene St. James @HeleneStJames 6m6 minutes ago

#RedWings announce trophy awarded to to NHL Prospect Tournament champion renamed Matthew Wuest Memorial Cup, after late CapGeek developer.

We are so lucky to be fans of likely the classiest organization in sports!

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Very classy move. This speaks volumes about the decency of the organization, but also about the profound impact that social media, the internet, non-traditional information outlets, and data oriented analysis have had on the sports landscape. Only a short time ago, a guy like Matt would have been considered a diehard fan, and nothing more. Naming the Cup after him seems to suggest that someone like Matt can have a substantive impact on sports decision-makers, not because of his position within an organization, but because the quality of his work and his commitment to transparency and objectivity change the way average fans access and interpret information about their team.

I don't think you can stress enough the importance that Matt had on our own organization. I remember when Datsyuk and Zetterberg entered the league, nobody knew a thing about them. Coming off years with the same core of guys, and suddenly we had these two new guys who really looked like they could play, and who came out of nowhere. That could never happen now. There's just too much demand for information about our drafting, prospects, and development. Today Red Wings fans demand as much information about their team, at every single level, as any of the Canadian teams despite huge differences in the attention the sport in given in each country in traditional media outlets. That level of expectation, knowledge, and attention is the direct result of all the hard work Matt Wuest put into making a good product.

The name of the Matt Wuest Cup is well deserved. Kudos.

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Well deserved. Its an amazing testament, not only to the compassion and class that the organization has, but particularly to the impact and dedication that Matt had on the sport. I think Kip articulated it as good as anyone. Matt's work was a game-changer on multiple levels.

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Better article:

Wings assistant general manager Ryan Martin remembers when he first met Wuest.

"I was introduced to him my first month on the job, 10 years ago, by Jim Nill," Martin told the Free Press. Nill was the assistant GM in Detroit before becoming GM of the Dallas Stars. "He had a tremendous amount of passion for the Wings. His Red Wings Central site was incredibly thorough."

Shortly after launching CapGeek, which became a resource for NHL clubs and fans for detailed contract information about every team's players, Martin and Wuest again talked regularly.

"We had a little bit of a relationship," Martin said, "and he reached out to me in the process of doing due diligence, asked me about rules and issues regarding the salary cap.

"Over the years, and I told him this, he knew the ins and outs of the CBA better than some people who work for some of the teams. The amount of time he put into maintaining the site was second to none."

Honoring Wuest at the prospect tournament, an eight-team event that precedes Detroit's main training camp, made sense, given Wuest's passion for the next generation of NHLers. "He wrote a lot of articles about the tournament," Martin said, "and he tracked statistics before there was a more centralized system.

"It's a great honor to memorialize him and remember his impact on the Wings and the NHL community."

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