In The Crease

Detroit: Hockeytown or not? The Freep can't decide

Mitch Albom's column ("Wings come out big, so why don't the fans?") on Wednesday attracted a lot of attention, especially on sports talk radio here in the Motor City.

Albom didn't have any earth-shattering statistics to back up his opinions. They weren't even original — writers took shots at the Red Wings all season as rows of empty seats piled up faster than the $9 tickets sold (the marketing tool the Wings were using to woo fans back).

Those tickets, like the slap-in-the-fan's-face "Joe Bucks" post lockout, didn't work. For the first time in memory, Red Wings are pushing season tickets sales. According to the boxscores, every Wings playoff game in 2008 — unlike 2007 — have been sold out. But there's been empty seats, too many seats to use the excuse that people are in The Olympia Room boozing.

Album summed up his disgust with the fans after Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against Dallas this way:

"OK. End of lecture. I don't know if those tickets weren't sold (bad) or just not used (worse). I know only that if the Wings win seven more games, if they capture the Cup, if they keep up this excellence and they do it with this many empty seats, we don't deserve the name Hockeytown. And it'll be our loss."

But who would they be losing the title to? Yea, the Minnesota Wild have sold out every season at the Xcel Energy Center. Buffalo tried to grab away the title of Hockeytown, but hockey fizzled slightly there this year. (Maybe once the Bills leave for Toronto that will change...)

But it's increasingly difficult to bill Detroit as Hockeytown. It's not the town it used to be. It's a Tigers-sometimes Pistons-maybe Michigan or Michigan State football-but rarely Lions-and occasionally Hockey-town now.

As a hockey fan, this is troubling. It speaks not only to problems in Detroit, but also the league at large. But more ridiculous than empty seats at playoff time is the story The Detroit Free Press ran the next day on A1:

"Hockeytown is having a rebirth. ...

Thursday night, Joe Louis was nearly full by the end of the first period. A free T-shirt promotion had created long lines at the entrances and the crowd arrived unusually late. Yes, there were empty seats, but nothing like the recent past.

No one is suggesting this team is shoving aside the Hall of Fame-laden squad of 2002 in the pantheon of Detroit's memorable championship runs. That was the year the team had Scotty Bowman as its coach, and players including Yzerman, Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan, Luc Robitaille, Sergei Fedorov and Dominik Hasek.

But consider: Playoff ticket sales are up by about 1,000 per game compared with last year. The Wings were the No. 1 page on freep.com in April and gathered twice as many page views as the Pistons. They even beat the Lions.

And for the first time in five years, Detroit's FSN affiliate reported an upswing in the ratings. Last year, the station averaged a 3.6 rating during Wings games in the regular season, the lowest in the history of the station. This year, the number jumped 34% to 4.7.

TV ratings for NHL games have jumped 30% across the country on all of FSN's affiliates. Not so stunningly, said Greg Hammaren, FSN Detroit's senior vice president and general manager, the biggest rating came for a Wings game.

'And it's not even close,' he said. 'It's hard not to like this team.'"

This is disgusting. Yes, Albom is a columnist and the aforementioned story ran in the news section. But this feels wrong. The Freep hasn't been immune from the Wings ticket bashing this season. Running that column and then that front page story the next day just reeks of a phone call made from a dark office in Joe Louis Arena to the Free Press brass.

Either way, the jury is still out on whether Detroit still merits being called Hockeytown, USA. It didn't look good yesterday, when Versus TV crews had to round up fans outside the Joe to produce the "crowd" shot you saw before the game. And the storied octopus is oddly thrown from the same spot in the arena at the same point during the anthem every playoff game.

But the Wings are up 2-0 in their series against Dallas. The Tigers are struggling. And the Pistons aren't garnering the same buzz, either. The Lions are still the Lions.

So maybe there is hope for Hockeytown yet.

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SHOW PHILLY SOME BROTHERLY LOVE: I'm not even fighting it any more — I'm a Sabres fan cheering for the Flyers.

Need another reason? Elliotte Friedman just did a Marty Biron profile on "Inside Hockey" prior to Game 2 between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on CBC. Best quote? Biron, talking about his son, Jacob. His son tells him the same thing before each game — tell Danny Briere to score a goal, have another shutout and bring me home a puck. He talked about Game 1 against Montreal when that didn't happen, and Jacob wouldn't even talk to him.

Great stuff! Sabres fans have to love the Briere-Biron connection; Biron also mentioned how Brian Campbell used to hide his goaltender pads in the locker room, while Marty would hide Campbell's stuff in the ceiling tiles.

Broad Street Dilemmas

I hate the Flyers. I wasn't around in the Broad Street Bullies days, but it doesn't matter. I had 1997, when I was still a Red Wings fan. I had Legion of Doom. And John Leclair's phantom goal, when Sabres fans learned that scoring through the side of the net is not only legal, but also series-changing.

Even one of my proudest moments as a fan came rooting against the orange and black. Amidst a 10-game winning streak to open the 2006-2007 season, the Sabres destroyed the Flyers, 9-1. Ken Hitchcock fired. Bobby Clarke resigned. Life couldn't get better.

But that was then. Now, former Sabres - former Sabres most fans absolutely LOVED - wear that evil sweater. They get cheered and booed by fans wearing "VENGEANCE NOW" t-shirts.

Despite all this, I'm struggling, as are many other Sabres fans. How can you hate Daniel Briere's face? The one that can't grow a playoff beard. He's leading the playoffs in scoring. When he scored last night to recapture the Flyers' lead, I screamed in agony. But I'm not sure if it was sincere. Because at the same time, it reminded me of Briere scoring against Carolina in Game 6 of the 2006 conference finals, which is as far from Philly hatred as you can get.

And then there's Buffalo-backup-now-Philly-starting-netminder Marty Biron. It's Marty. Goofy, loveable ... he's still the same, but he doesn't wear a goatlord anymore. Oh, and all of a sudden he's the biggest story of the playoffs. He looks borderline cocky (which of course, can't be true, because he's Marty) in the crease, but with good reason. He's been outstanding.

And that's just the Flyers/Habs series. The other Eastern Conference series has not just my favorite ex-Sabre, but pretty much my favorite player of all time, Chris Drury. He looked as if he popped his shoulder out of its socket the last game, but struggled back to play in the third period. In Game 4, I just watched him crouch on the ground to block a shot, cringe with pain, and then skate gingerly to the boards. But then he opens the door and sits on the bench, like nothing happened. Just like when he tied Game 5 with 7.7 seconds to go against the Rangers last year. Same Drury, different jersey.

So here's the dilemma: as sports fans, do we cheer for teams? Or do we cheer for individuals?

Or is it possible to do both without driving yourself crazy?

Fellow Michigan grads say they pick their NFL team based on which one has the most former Wolverines, probably since many Detroit natives couldn't find the strength to root for the Lions. This has always sounded absurd to me. But is it?

Cheering for the Sabres through the dark years, could you really have a favorite player? If you did, they probably left, retired or got traded. You were more worried with losing the TEAM. That's when I became a sports fan in camp one, leaving behind my individual player allegiances. I practically disowned Dominik  Hasek and Michael Peca.

Could there be middle ground? Can you root against the Flyers, yet cheer for Briere and Biron? It seems mathematically impossible. If Biron stops everything and Briere scores, Flyers win. (The Rangers will probably be eliminated this week, if not tonight, so I'm not as concerned with Drury.)

In sports, you can try to control your emotions. But in the end, it's just like love. Your true feelings will show through. I wonder if that's finally happening to me, and if it is, whether I can be a Sabres fan and live with that.

Look ma, no hands!

I've been scared of him since I was a kid, especially after he absolutely broke my heart in May of 1999.

My parents surprised me with game six tickets, Colorado vs. Detroit. After blowing a 2-0 series lead, the Red Wings were on the verge of being eliminated from the playoffs following two straight Stanley Cup wins in 1997 and 1998. And sitting in the nosebleeds of Joe Louis Arena, I saw one player -- Peter Forsberg -- take the game and the series into his own hands.

Forsberg's two-goal effort lifted his team to victory then. And last night, he gave the Buffalo Sabres their first taste of post-season defeat.

And the scary part was that Forsberg didn't even need to shoot the puck on net to score. On his first tally, Sabres defenseman Brian Campbell swung at the puck and ended up hitting the puck off Jay McKee's skate and into the net. For his second, Forsberg stationed himself behind the Sabre net and banked the puck off goaltender Ryan Miller.

“I didn’t know, I was just trying to hit something in front of the net, just trying to get it there,” Forsberg told philadelphiaflyers.com. “It was kind of my two luckiest goals ever, but we’ll take them and go from there.”

Lucky? I'm not fooled. Forsberg makes the plays happen through his hard work and superstar talent. Still not convinced? He now has 159 points in 136 playoff games. I've always been scared of him, but I just hope Chris Drury and the Sabres can contain him better in the rest of the series than they did in game two.

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Just like Forsberg: Forsberg isn't the only one using telekinesis to score goals in the playoffs. His old teammate, Alex Tanguay, banked the puck off Willie Mitchell's skate for the OT-winner in game three of the Dallas-Colorado series. Detroit's Robert Lang kept with the trend when his wrister hit both posts before bouncing off Jaroslav Spacek and into the net against the Oilers. Nashville's Paul Kariya added another off San Jose's Kyle McLaren.

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Philly fans have no class:

"Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Denis Gauthier used his stick blade as deftly as a surgeon.

And it hurt Sabres winger J.P. Dumont about as much as the scalpel that sliced him open on an operating table five months ago.

Dumont writhed on his hands and knees for several minutes and needed assistance to leave the ice in the second period." -TBN

But it wasn't the play -- which some perceived as an attempt to injure -- that really bugged me. It was the fans reaction at the Wachovia Center. With Dumont obviously experiencing pain on the ice, the Flyers' PA announcer said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Let’s show our class and cheer the man down on the ice." The fans did just the opposite, booing Dumont as he was helped off the ice by two teammates.

Sabres play-by-play man Rick Jeanneret commented, "You get the feeling they'd only cheer if someone was taken away in a hearse."

 

Oh yea, and these are the same fans that tossed hundreds of hats on the ice when Simon Gagne scored into the empty net at the end of the game, thinking that Forsberg had completed the hat trick. Hey fans: 12 is not 21. And an assist isn't a goal.

Searching for hope

The last 48 hours have been an absolute whirlwind for Sabres fans -- especially me. And I deserve to rant one (hopefully) last time.

This CBA was supposed to bring parity and reassure fans in small markets that any team could compete. Many small market teams (Columbus, Florida) have gone out and made significant moves to upgrade their hockey clubs. But the Sabres are not on this list. Darcy Regier has managed to cut Buffalo's best forward -- Miroslav Satan -- and best defenseman -- Alexei Zhitnik -- in the first two days of free agency. Everyone goes to the Island, or so I've heard. So this is what we waited 310 days for?

1. Why would a free agent want to come to Buffalo?

How is Regier selling this team to possible players? "Ummmm... we have ahm... solid goaltending and a core of young talent which includes Brian Campbell, err, Chris Drury." And what happens when the player/agent asks about the recent departures? Does Darcy just say they weren't at the right price? Or that the Sabres have this "surplus" of talent? Okay, so the team is a crapshoot. You can't sell them on the weather like the Panthers.

2. Sabres fans are outraged

After bankruptcy and three years of missing the playoffs, all Sabres fans asked for was hope -- something that was supposed to be part of a new, cost-certainty NHL. I didn't know whether to cry or scream when I found out Zhitnik was signed by the Islanders. I felt betrayed by a franchise which has -- at least under Lindy Ruff -- prided itself on solid defense. Now the Sabres have Dmitri Kalinin and not much else: injury-scarred Jay McKee, shaky Henrik Tallinder, dependable Rory Fitzpatrick, smart-but-old James Patrick, horrid Brian Campbell and even scarier Jeff Jillson. Was $3.5 million too much for a defenseman who logs almost 30 minutes a night and is, for lack of a better cliche, like a rock? He's one of the smoothest skaters in the league and does the job without breaking a sweat. He's a steady veteran that's been with your club for nine and a half years. Doesn't any of this mean anything to Regier? Because it sure means a lot to most Sabres fans, even the ones who yelled at Z when he missed the net consistently. It was a love-hate relationship, but I think the outrage yesterday and today is proof that Sabres fans not only knew the franchise needed Zhitnik, but also that they wanted him to stay.

3. The face of the franchise

Who is the marketing team supposed to sell to the community? Chris Drury and Daniel Briere, two of the team's best players, have played in Buffalo less than two years. Another slew of the forwards -- Derek Roy, Thomas Vanek, Ales Kotalik -- have young, promising NHL careers, but nothing to sell Sabres fans except faith. And how are you supposed to do that when Zhitnik and Satan are gone? Bring back Brad May? Tell Jim Schoenfield to lace up the skates?

4. Hope

I don't feel like it's too greedy to ask for hope. Philadelphia gets hope in the form of Peter Forsberg, who returns to the franchise that drafted him in 1991. Panthers fans get Gary Roberts and Joe Nieuwendyk. Islanders fans get Satan, Zhitnik and Mike York. And Edmonton -- known for losing players -- picked up Chris Pronger and Michael Peca. But this is what Sabres fans are told, courtesy of The Buffalo News:

' "We made (Zhitnik) an offer based on an evaluation of what we thought his value is," Sabres General Manager Darcy Regier said. "It was a very good offer, but based on what his agent told me, he could do better.

"The judgments we're making are based on what we think the value of a player should be. We're not interested in chasing or getting into a bidding war." '

Chasing? Bidding war? I haven't heard any Sabres rumors. While this is typical with Regier, I have the feeling we're going to have to be patient for days, even weeks, before we might see additions to this club. And beyond adding a few warm bodies on defense, I'm doubtful that Regier will do much. I'm praying every day he'll prove me wrong.

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Okay, so if you're a Sabres fan I've further enraged you or made you more depressed. Don't worry -- other fans, including that dreaded blue-and-white clan to the north are fed up too. The message boards at Sabresfans.com are bursting with Sabres talk, including a comforting message from long-time poster Goatlord:

"We were screwed when Rigas was arrested after putting the team $150 million bucks in debt. We're less screwed now because Golly [owner Tom Golisano] is rumored to have spent in excess of $100 million of his dollars to bail the team out. I was born the same year as this team, seen a lot of players, coaches, GM's and even owners come and go. Some are bad, some are good, very few have been great. Imo these past 4 years or so have been the lowest point in the history of the franchise. Imo Darcy and Quinn [Larry], under very reasonable and understanding budget constraints, have spent the money unwisely and did not anticipate the difficulties or the speed of this offseason. Quinn screwed the franchise up once already, he's well on his way to a 2nd time. Darcy... well we all know he should have been fired a couple years ago.

All I can, like 75 [another poster] who said he's been through rough time in the past as well, is the bad times always end and when they do the good times are that much sweeter. Any Sabres fan who endured the 80's knows how sweeeeeeeeeet MayDay was that season. And the playoff runs of the late 90's.... I haven't enjoyed a team so much in my life.

So if I may dare to repeat what others have said. Just hang in there my friends. Maybe we'll sign some players, maybe we won't. Maybe we'll suck this year, maybe we won't. I know I was here cheering for the Sabres long before Darcy, Lindy, Larry and Golly. I know I'll be here cheering for the Sabres long after they are gone. I know you all will be too. Things will get better. Let your voices be heard, keep the faith and put on the foil. But whatever happens, just don't turn your backs on the team. It may be full of a bunch of screwed up misfits but hey, so is Buffalo We'll have our day. If I was Golly I'd take note of the frustration and anger. It will hurt his bottom line but imo it also shows that after... whate 5 years of constant bullshit the fanbase is passionate and still loves the team. If they didn't, they sure as hell wouldn't be so upset."

That really did make me feel better. I'm always going to be a diehard fan. I got over the Michael Peca trade a few years back. I lived through the dark years of the franchise. I'm still here. And I'm not going anywhere.

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AROUND THE LEAGUE:

- Chicago still suffering from the past: After Adrian Aucoin signed with the Blackhawks, GM Dave Tallon pursued Peter Forsberg and Mike Modano -- offering them both more than what they eventually signed for. Is Tallon up to the challenge of completely reversing the Blackhawks' negative image?

-Avalanche lose out on Foote, Forsberg: I feel a little sorry for Avs fans, but can they really complain that much? They still have Joe Sakic, Milan Hejduk, Rob Blake and Alex Tanguay. Does GM Pierre Lacroix still have the golden touch in the new NHL?

-For deprived, out-of-town Sabres fans: Still sulking from the loss of EMPIRE and WNSA like me? WGR has added an audio vault to their website, updated daily with clips from favorites like Howard Simon and Mike Schopp.