chrisphil1724

Well done. What made you decide to leave the organization?

I get that question a lot and without writing a book, which I probably could, I left for 2 main reasons. First, I was moving to Harrisburg PA to be closer to my girlfriend. (and future Mrs.?)

Secondly, I left because the job became my life. You may be shocked to learn that from 2005 till 2010 I made most videos that were used in-arena and for the team’s personal usage, by myself.  That’s right, a staff of one. I did get help along the way on some projects, but a lot of the time, it was on me to get the job done. Most NHL teams have 4 full time editors, at minimum, on staff however the Wings were getting everything they felt they needed with one person, so in their minds, why would you hire anyone else?

This put me under a lot of pressure to work a lot harder then I should have been to get the job done, day by day. There’s loving your job, then there’s your job becoming 6 days / 60 to 70 hours of your life a week. No room for friends, family, getting out, and hell watching TV or playing Xbox became hard to find time for. I was hospitalized 3 times in those 5 seasons from stress; my hair was starting to turn gray at the age of 24.

To be clear, no one from the team or anyone else for that matter pushed me to work that hard. I could have easily done the minimum, worked 40 hours a week and been fine. However, I’m a huge fan of the Red Wings and I wanted to do the best I could do for the team and the best I could do to entertain the Red Wings fans. Again I can go on forever but it’s a story for another time.

Also, what's the music used in the video?

The theme to the TV show, The Contender. I felt it fix Lidstrom very well so I made it his unofficial theme.

Small background,

My name is Chris and believe it or not, I was the Detroit Red Wings' Video Editor from 2005 till 2010. I've been a fan of this site for years and I feel you guys are the best community of Wings fans on the net. I wish I could have put more of this stuff out when I was with the team but seeing how I'm 2 years removed, I feel I can put some of this out to you, the Red Wings fans to see.

My favorite Nick Lidstrom moment is kind of a selfish one but the fans and Nick were so great to help make the moment happen, that I'm very happy the stars alined how they did on the production side of things, both in-arena and on FSN Detroit.

October 15, 2009, the Wings were getting ready to face the LA Kings with just 2 home games left before going on a 5 game road trip. Lidstrom was sitting on career point 998 and these games were seemingly his last shot to get to 1000 points at home. 6 hours before puck drop, at around 1:30pm, I had finished my last video requirement for the game and had only 1 optional video to do, a 1000th Career NHL Point Salute video for the captain. I could have easily skipped the video and moved on to other work (as I did a lot more then just edit videos for the team) but for some reason, I felt like I had to get this video done before tonight's game.

After only working 90 minutes on the video, it was as done as it could get for the night, so I packed up everything and headed down to the Joe. As luck would have it, I was also running in-arena replays that night, the ones you see on the scoreboard. Lidstrom got 999 in the 2nd and 3:24 into the 3rd, he recorded career point 1000. During the first tv timeout of the 3rd, I had a replay of point 1000 ready which we rolled into the video I had made just 4 to 5 hours sooner and well, you can see for yourself how it turned out.



Soon after FSN came back from the TV timeout, I received a texted message from my mom, it said "Did you just do something cool?" I replied, "I think so".


And that's my favorite Nick Lidstrom moment, hope you enjoyed it a little too. What's some of your guy's favorite moments?