Steve Yzerman wore a charcoal suit and a dark tie and he sat way up in the highest row in Joe Louis Arena. From here, you'll note, it is impossible to cast a shadow."It's their team now," he said.And down on the ice, indeed it was. The Red Wings began their real season Thursday night, the only one anyone around here cares about, the playoffs, the opener, and if you haven't watched them since Yzerman was wearing the "C," well, they looked different.
Class president?"No, never," Nicklas Lidstrom says.Student council leader?"We didn't have that."Yearbook editor? Head Boy scout?"I never went to the Boy Scouts."Did they even do Boy Scouts in Sweden?"Oh, yeah. But I was mostly playing hockey and soccer."I am trying to find the leadership positions on Nick Lidstrom's resume. After all, he is the captain of the Red Wings now - the first new captain after two decades of Steve Yzerman. Surely, he has been groomed from his past.Hall monitor, I ask?"Nope."
The Duke players made their statements and the cameras cut away. Too bad. That's when the real story started.I'd like the cameras to keep rolling. I'd like them to follow Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans after the crowds disappear, in the months and years ahead.I'd like to follow them when they apply for a job, and the company interviewing them has a staff meeting and someone in that staff meeting says, "Maybe we should stay away from this guy. After all, that whole rape thing "
Are you in? That's supposedly the Red Wings' playoff slogan this year, but midway through the third period Thursday night, it already had become a desperate fan's question. Are you in? That puck flying across the crease? Are you in? That shot that hit the post? Are you in? That Johan Franzen second chance? Are you in? That Pavel Datsyuk solo rush?
He has come a long way in 20 years, when he was skating for a British hockey team while teaching at a local college."Did you ever come to class with a black eye?" I ask Mike Babcock."Probably," he says.You can't get much more anonymous than the Whitley Warriors, near Newcastle upon Tyne, where Babcock, between classes, played hockey in "a barn that sat 5,000 people" and had a mesh screen instead of glass, so the puck bounced off it.
Attendance was mandatory. You had to be on time. Appearance mattered. No outside items were permitted. And no one left until all were dismissed. I am not talking about school, church or the military.I am talking about family dinners.If I had to point to one thing as the glue of my childhood, it would be those meals. They were fixed and firm. We waited for everyone. We never had the TV or radio playing. And we stayed at that table - eating, talking, laughing, yelling - sometimes for hours.
They met in a soda shop over a milkshake - he ordered it, she served it - and six weeks later, he asked her to marry him. This was 1947 and she was still in high school. So they waited until she graduated. During that time there were dates and laughs and flowers - flowers, because his work was landscaping - and there was baseball, too, always baseball.
I'm taking New England. What about you? Hurry. Pick now. It's almost too late. What's the rush, you ask? There's still 12 days until the Super Bowl. Please! That's the rush. The 12 days are a trap, pure poison to any thinking fan. Already I can feel the Super Hype oozing out of radio speakers. Already, I can see the television talking heads turning "pro" into "con" and "con" into "pro."Already, I can see newspaper ink thickening in evenhandedness: "Why The Eagles Will Win" and "Why The Patriots Will Win."
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
