Darren McCarty will never pay for a meal in this town again. In two explosive moments that embody all that is right with hockey and all that is wrong with it, McCarty made an unforgettable impression on this Detroit Red Wings season. In the first moment, he bloodied the game. In the second, he won it.Let us begin with the first, late in the opening period Wednesday night, when he spun away from a linesman and coldcocked Colorado's Claude Lemieux in the face.
Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. -- long before the other players would arrive -- Mike Ramsey entered the Red Wings' locker room. It was empty, freshly vacuumed, the music playing softly over the stereo. Ramsey went to his locker, grabbed his two pairs of skates, his pads and his helmet. The only other thing he had brought with him three weeks ago were his sticks. He decided to leave them behind.As he headed for the door, he stopped at the blackboard. He picked up the chalk and squeaked out a message."Thanks guys. Good luck, (signed) Rammer."
Sometimes you play basketball, sometimes it plays you. Maurice Taylor knows this. He remembers the airport a few years ago, waving good-bye to his mother, who was moving to Tennessee for a better job.Taylor wanted to go, too. A self-described "mama's boy," he couldn't imagine a day without her, even though he had been living with an aunt in Detroit for several years, because his mother's east side neighborhood was not the place for a budding basketball star.
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.
