Howard35

Well you got the bleeding part right...

Chinese fakes are crap and you are supporting unlawful business practices and getting an inferior product. Save up and buy something that is licensed.

226B, last row. The greatest section in any arena in all sports. Growing up, we had season tickets in sec. 106 row 13. When I went to college, we used to get 226B tickets because they were cheap and I became addicted. I traded lower bowl tickets for 226B for that game (game 7 Anaheim) and adopted those seats for college hockey as well. 226B, row 27, seat 19. The greatest seat in all sports. OK, enough digression in the Winter Classic thread. There should be a "best seats" thread.

I agree, however the venue, IMO is almost if not more important than the city itself in this situation. It really is a made-for-TV event. Outside of Wrigley Field, Fenway Park...I don't really like the baseball stadium idea. Football fields are better. Personally, I hate the Tigers, hate Comerica Park and love Michigan and Michigan Stadium, so my opinion is clearly biased. I'd love to see Detroit get a WC and would certainly attend, but Comerica Park doesn't have that nostalgic feel that it had in Chicago or Boston. The Big Chill kind of took some luster off of Michigan Stadium, though, because it's something we've seen in the recent past at that venue.

Good question. I'm not sure. A normal Sony camera, but it wasn't mine, so I don't know the zoom. For comparison, last row of Michigan Stadium and last row at the Joe, both with camera phone:

It isn't. Look at the perspective. There are no seats above the suites. It's from overhead. This is the view from my seat, which was in the very last row under the south scoreboard. There were no problems seeing the action, even at the far end.

FYI, in Yzerman's final season, the league had already gone Reebok (as you can see in this photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Lidstrom-Yzerman.jpg ) The sweater was still made with the "CCM template" as there was no shield on the front, and the "C" was still on the left shoulder. But, the RBK vector was on the back. However, post-Yzerman, the Edge template was introduced. The thing that bothers me about the Yzerman Reebok Edge jerseys isn't that it's a Reebok jersey and he didn't play in that style, it's just that the "C" is placed on the wrong shoulder (the right shoulder, where Lidstrom wears it today on the new template.) Although, I do know that Detroit Athletic sells an Yzerman Edge jersey with the C on the left shoulder.

The Wings and Habs are the only Original Six teams NOT to share an arena (and Montreal lacks an NBA counterpart), but there's no need for the Pistons to move. This should be a Wings-only venture and if we want to lay claim to being "Hockeytown" then we should be able to build an arena that is befitting of that title. Something that is to hockey what Camden Yards was to baseball in the early 90s.

I hope you're right about the lease on the Joe, but the thought of sharing an arena is nauseating. We need a hockey-only venue. This is Hockeytown. I don't want to see any stupid basketball murals/banners/merchandise when I go to a Wings game. If there has to be a new arena, it needs to be a gem and a shrine to hockey in Detroit. I'm in favor of a modern Olympia. Something with character.

1. Michigan plays at Yost Ice Arena, capacity 6,603. Crisler is the basketball arena and is an atrocious venue. 2. The Palace would be awful. Moving the Wings out of Detroit would be awful. 3. The Joe is a great building. It has character, which few of the new buildings have. It needs work, absolutely, but if they must build a new rink (instead of completing major renovations at the Joe) then at least sink some cash into making the Joe a solid temporary home until the new rink is available. The amount of money and effort required to relocate the team (including the administrative functions of the team) to the Palace is not worth it.

The material that is used to make the letters/numbers of a fake is different than the real deal. For lack of a better term, the real material is flatter (doesn't have a shiny look or as smooth a texture and larger numbers lack a "bubble" quality) and you can see the scanlines on the material. The spacing on the Red Wings WC jerseys between the numbers and the nameplate is off and the number thickness is off. These are minor deficiencies that only the best fakes have to separate them from the officially licensed, and most people are not as anal as I am about this sort of thing and won't catch it. Hell, most people don't see the difference between the horribly lettered Starter jerseys of the mid-late 90s (and those with the thick red outline on the crest on the front of the jersey) and those WERE officially licensed. Like I said, I'm a stickler for authenticity over pricepoint. For some teams, like Chicago, it's easier to get away with a fake, but there are some unique aspects to the Wings' unis, namely the lettering, that make it tough.

Amen. I just posted a similar response in the other thread. The Lidstrom jersey posted above is a great example of how much better a quality sweater looks than one of the cheap knock-offs bought to save a puck. I read about posters ordering the fakes 5-6 at a time, and that money would be better spent getting one quality sweater that's officially licensed and tailored to the specifications of the team.

That jersey looks fantastic.