By George B. Eichorn
Detroit Monitor
The lid is off another Detroit Pistons season, their 51st in National Basketball Association history. The October 29 opener against the Indiana Pacers at the Palace in Auburn Hills was the first for rookie head coach Michael Curry.
Indeed, the Pistons are starting another season with another new coach as Curry replaced the fired Flip Saunders following last season’s Eastern Conference finals loss to the eventual NBA Champion Boston Celtics.
Curry is the ninth coach of the Pistons since Chuck Daly left in 1992. That is an astonishing record for a team that has helped dominate the NBA in wins and losses much of that time. Curry is the fifth coach in club president Joe Dumars’ regime, dating to 2000. Others were George Irvine, Rick Carlisle, Larry Brown and Saunders.
“If anything, I think the change to Michael Curry has re-energized the players,” said longtime Pistons announcer Mark Champion.. “Curry is a contemporary who has the respect of the players. Without it a coach is spinning his wheels.
“Curry will also bring a toughness and focus to the team that was missing at times last season.”
Certainly Dumars and owner Bill Davidson were disappointed that Saunders could not maintain discipline and appeared to lack coaching ability to guide the Pistons to a fourth NBA Championship in the three years he was here. Making it to the Eastern finals every year is nice yet not winning the best-of-seven is agonizing on management, players and the fans.
Following last year’s exit it was Dumars who said he would probably shake up the Pistons core of players, anchored by team captain, guard Chauncey Billups, guard Richard (Rip) Hamilton, center Rasheed Wallace and forwards Tayshaun Prince and Antonio McDyess. It did not happen. So why are they all back?
“Dumars said all along he would not make a trade just to be making a trade,” said Champion. “If it made sense and would help the team get to the championship…then do it. I agree with that.
“The core group of the Pistons is still strong. I don’t think the window of opportunity has closed. I think the Pistons will be right in the thick of things thanks to an
improved bench.”
Curry has several options off the bench starting with sixth man McDyess who is still searching for his first NBA ring after 12 seasons with the Pistons, Nuggets, Suns and Knicks. There are other weapons in the Pistons arsenal such as up-and-coming guard Rodney Stuckey and forward Jason Maxiell.
“McDyess will be more effective coming in with the second unit. Rodney Stuckey has a chance to be special,” said Champion. “Jason Maxiell, Aaron Afflalo, and Kwame Brown will also bring energy. This unit has caused the starters to play at a higher level.”
The Pistons starters showed their fatigue at times in last year’s second season — the NBA playoffs. The veterans led by Billups, Hamilton, Wallace, Prince and McDyess failed to seal the deal against the hungrier Celtics, who claimed their first ring since the 1985-86 season. Adding insult, Boston won the East on the Pistons home court last spring.
The Pistons have one significant new addition in Brown. The 6-11, 270-pound center is in his 7th NBA season and appeared in just 38 games (15 starts) with the Los Angeles Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies last year averaging 4.8 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.
Starting at power forward is fourth-year veteran Amir Johnson. Stuckey (2nd season), Maxiell (4th) and Afflalo (2nd) will be coming off Curry’s bench frequently. Others battling for playing time or roster positions are third-year forward Walter Hermann, rookie forward Walter Sharpe, second-year center Cheikh Samb and second-year guards Alex Acker and Will Bynum.
Once again the East will be a battle royal between the Pistons, Celtics and probably Cleveland Cavaliers to make it to the NBA Finals representing the East. The choice by most pundits will be the Celtics but do not underestimate Curry’s Pistons team.
“The East is an improving conference,” said Champion. “However, there are a lot of question marks. The Celtics, Pistons, Cavs and Orlando Magic are the top four. It’s a guessing game for the other four spots. I think Philadelphia and Toronto are poised to make a move.
“The Sixers added Elton Brand and the Raptors added Jermaine O’Neal. The Heat should be better with a healthy D (Dwayne)-Wade. The Wizards are snake-bitten with injuries. Gilbert Arenas is out again until December and Brendan Haywood perhaps for the season. The rest of the teams are not a factor.”
In the NBA West, Champion and this writer agree. “Look out for Portland. And will this be the year the Spurs and Mavs finally show their age? Biggest tumble in the West is Denver.”
The Pistons open with a grueling schedule as seven of their first 10 games are away from home.
George Eichorn’s NBA picks: Central-Detroit, Atlantic-Boston, Southeast-Orlando, Southwest-San Antonio, Northwest-Utah, Pacific-Portland. NBA Finals: Pistons over Trail Blazers. Reach George at geichorn@yahoo.com.
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By George B. Eichorn of The Detroit Monitor
Dr. Derrick Gragg has a tough job. Being a director of athletics at a college such as Eastern Michigan University is no small task. From academic and compliance issues to budgets, marketing and promotions, a college AD has a complex and stressful assignment.
The Eagles have a 38-year-old Huntsville, Alabama native who has honed his academic and work skills at Vanderbilt University, Wayne State University, the University of Arkansas and the University of Michigan. Besides athletics, Dr. Gragg has worked in the offices of student life, compliance, operations and as an academic advisor.
Now in his third year at EMU, he brings dedication and enthusiasm to the athletic program every day and the results are proving that his hiring was a wise move by the Ypsilanti-based school’s administration. Here is a Monitor interview with Dr. Gragg.
Q. What successes are going on in athletics at EMU?
Gragg: “I’ll give you an overall general perspective. Right now, things are going very well. I’m in my third year as the athletics director here and we just celebrated, at the beginning of the semester, our athletic program capturing the Reese Cup, which is the Mid-American Conference’s all-sports trophy for men’s athletics. That’s the fourth time in school history that we won that. The women came in fifth for the Jacoby Cup. It was our best overall combined finish since 1990-1991. We’re very happy about that.
“We also had a record number of student athletes make all-academic MAC teams this year. Combined excellence is one of the things we stress here so our student athletes are doing very well on and off the fields and courts. The year before that we won eight conference championships which is a MAC and a school record, and we’re very pleased with that as well. I’m very happy with the job that our student athletes and coaches are doing right now.”
Q. How difficult is it to get all the other college sports their fair play in the news media and on campus?
Gragg: “Obviously, football and basketball usually get much more of the publicity and the visibility yet our program here is the largest and most comprehensive in the Mid-American Conference. We have 21 sports programs and over 550 student athletes so that’s a lot of opportunity for a lot of students who compete here. Sixteen head coaches here are doing a very good job and in the last two years we’ve 13 MAC coaches of the year. It’s just been phenomenal. Again, those other sports get a lot of attention but we have some outstanding student athletes in other programs as well.”
Q. How important are promotions in your job and for your budget to be balanced?
Gragg: “Promotions are extremely important to us starting with our student promotions and I definitely want to commend our students here. At the last home football game we had more than 3,800 students here. That was the most students we’ve had come to a game in a decade. That’s fantastic and I really want to commend our marketing staff here especially Stephannie Harvey-Vandenberg and Scott Schultz as they interface with a lot of the student groups on campus and come up with a lot of the promotional activities.
“Every week we have an extensive marketing campaign and it’s about three pages long. We definitely try and pull out all the stops as far as promotions go. One of the specific things that we do is a pre-game we call Eagle Nation. It’s located north of the football field, in the baseball field area, and we have tents plus inflatables for kids and with EMU’s student groups there. It’s just a fantastic time. We encourage everyone to get out there a couple hours before kickoff and participate. We try to make our games into an event and a lot of things go on around them. Obviously the football game is the primary focus.”
Q. Over the years, EMU has experimented with football starting times, ranging from noon to later in the day. What is the ideal time for kickoff of your games?
Gragg: “We want to start football games at night especially when it is warmer. I think a Thursday night game is a perfect day and time for us. You need to get the other school and the Mid American Conference office to agree to that. Fortunately for us we only had only one had one conflict with the University of Michigan (just up the road in Ann Arbor). But that doesn’t happen every year. Because televisoon controls many of their kick times it’s really a difficult thing (to change). Maybe some later kickoffs would help us too.”
Q. The football team stands just 1-3 in the MAC and 2-6 overall in 2008; why is that?
Gragg: “We’re struggling a bit but the one thing about our student athletes — because I interface with them — is that they don’t quit. I’ve seen them working out in the summertime. This is the third summer that I’ve been here and I’ve seen an increased number of student athletes who stay here in the summertime. That is a credit to them because you win and lose football games during the off season.
“It’s not going really the way we want it to go but there is still a lot of football left to be played and we can still have a winning season in the Mid-American Conference. And we stress that. We want to focus mainly on the competition within the conference. Going down the stretch, there are all conference games and we can win them all. That’s what I hope we can do.”
Q. The conference has done a nice job by adding more bowl participation and a television contract so talk about the strides made.
Gragg: “I think it’s come a long way as a conference. Even when I worked at the University of Michigan from 1997 to 2000, it (MAC) just wasn’t as visible then as it is now. I look admirably at our MAC bowl tie-ins and our television contracts, and the other big thing is having our basketball tournament at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. It’s huge.
“We’re the only major conference that hosts its men’s and women’s tournaments in the same building simultaneously. It’s a logistical nightmare at times yet that’s when you get people talking about the student athlete experience. It’s out-of-the-box thinking. Also, just a few years ago there was only one bowl tie-in and now we have three (Motor City, GMAC and International Bowls). We’re looking at maybe going for a fourth. Those things are very important for visibility and sustainability within the college athletic landscape.”
Buy George Eichorn’s book, “Detroit Sports Broadcasters On the Air,” for $19.99 or less at
www.amazon.com. Reach him at geichorn@yahoo.com.
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By T.C. Cameron
Michigan and Michigan State — the state’s great football game. This year the Wolverines and Spartans play on the weekend of the traditional high school rivalry week, the ninth week of the season. Is there a better week of football in the state of Michigan this side of Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie?
If nothing else, there’s always room for another great story as it relates to the annual football game between Michigan’s Wolverines and Michigan State’s Spartans. That lesson wasn’t lost on those who attended the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association’s (DSBA) annual media day for the 101st edition of the annual rivalry game yesterday at Ginopolis Restaurant in Farmington Hills. The afternoon was filled with a lot of good-natured ribbing, some candid observations and some great stories and laughs.
Frank Beckmann, Jim Brandstatter and Rich Strenger took up the Michigan cause while Spartan stalwart George Perles headlined the state of affairs for the green n’ white. MSU’s Sherm Lewis was a late scratch due to an unforeseen circumstance. The luncheon was a lot like a back-n-forth volley to prove state supremacy even before the ball gets kicked off Saturday in historic Michigan Stadium. And one other thing’s for certain: There’s both no memory and a lot of history that goes into this game when it takes center stage each year. Michigan State hasn’t won since 2001; the Michigan contingent didn’t allow that fact to be overlooked Tuesday. At the same time, the Michigan State faithful were quick to point out that every year is a new year and another chance at redemption, in a very Brooklyn Dodger-kind of way.
Here are some of the highlights:
“I remember in 1983, my first year as head coach, we’re playing Michigan up at our place and it’s in the pregame when the coaches usually make small talk at midfield,” Perles recalled of his first game with Michigan’s legendary Bo Schembechler. “Instead, I told Bo, ‘I’m nervous (about this game)”. He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You ought to be!’
Michigan won that ‘83 game 42-0. That was the infamous “We beat the pants off of them” game. When Perles was hired to assume the Spartan sideline, he immediately made the statement after his first year of recruiting that, “We beat the pants off the guys in Ann Arbor!” Of course, those recruits didn’t get on the field much in Michigan’s 42-0 win, but Perles also remembered something Bo said that endeared the gruff Michigan coach to him.
“When I got hired, he came right into his coaches’ locker room and said, ‘Boys, the picnic’s over!”, referencing the fact that Schembechler knew Perles would turn the MSU program into one that Michigan would have to contend with after several dormant years in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Of course, the Paul Bunyan Game — the axe-wielding figure of the game’s trophy – is more than bragging rights. It’s a season’s redemption or re-birth. Sometimes it signals the end of the hopeful campaign for the loser. Usually both schools have played Notre Dame and each school awaits their season-ending rivalry game, with Michigan and Ohio State paired up annually and Michigan State’s Land Grant Trophy game with Penn State as their season’s natural bookend.
“People always bring up Ohio State, but I worried about Ohio State only after we played Michigan State,” said former Wolverine tackle and current radio commentator Jim Brandstatter. “It’s a game about mutual respect, especially for the guys from the state of Michigan. You have to remember, I played at East Lansing High School. My brother (Art) was a Spartan. My mother was left to wear maize n’ blue - as only a mother could - among all those Spartan fans. I was playing classmates out there. To me, there was no bigger game on our schedule.”
Perles, who champions his Motor City Bowl game on a near-daily basis, and Beckmann, the play-by-play voice of the Wolverines for 28 seasons, were the center of some verbal poke-n-jab when the discussion of Michigan’s bowl prospects arose.
“Would Michigan go to the Motor City Bowl?” Beckmann asked rhetorically. “Absolutely — as long as they don’t have to play Toledo!” Beckmann said with a good-natured laugh. “Seriously, any coach in America would take those extra practices. Michigan’s played four good quarters of football this year, but none of those quarters have come in the same game. You better believe Michigan would go. George, did you bring an application with you?”
Beckmann has become a bit of an YouTube sensation, with the emphasis depending on which color shirt you don during this game for his call of the final two plays of 2001’s game. Spartan tailback T.J. Duckett caught a two-yard pass for the winning score after the clock was stopped with 0:01 left. The game even has a Wikipedia page titled Clockgate that details the Michigan frustration with the game’s result, a 26-24 win for MSU.
Beckmann even goaded Perles to admit his famous pressbox quote from Spartan Stadium in the moments after that ‘01 game. “After Duckett caught that ball, George Perles walked out into the hallway and said, “Well, I guess Spartan Bob (then MSU’s timekeeper) earned a game ball today — isn’t it true, George?”
Perles, with a sly grin, replied, “Yes, it’s true, although he doesn’t get to keep the clock anymore these days,” among a room full of laughter.
Finally, Beckmann made no apologies for his unabashed viewpoint of 2001’s final two plays.
“We are advocates for our school,” Beckmann said with an unwavering tone. “We are the broadcasters for the 12 games Michigan plays, just like George Blaha and Jim Miller (the MSU radio tandem) are for Michigan State.”
~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit’s High School Football Rivalries from Arcadia Publishing. Cameron’s blog, The Write Referee, is syndicated by 27 papers throughout Michigan by The Oakland Press. A second book, Metro Detroit’s High School Basketball Rivalries, is due in September of 2009.
–
www.TCCameron.com
www.TheWriteReferee.com
www.writeref.blogspot.com (syndicated Oakland Press blog!)
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By George Eichorn of the Detroit Monitor
It‘s hockey time again in the United States and Canada as the Detroit Red Wings and the other 29 National Hockey League (NHL) teams dominate the airwaves and television sets across North America. Our annual Monitor look at the league’s broadcast details center around the Wings and other U.S. and Canada partners.
- LOCAL TV: Fox Sports Net Detroit (FSN) continues its exclusive production of Red Wings games by televising 74 regular-season contests with 65 games scheduled or airing on FSN and nine on FSN Plus. FSN earlier carried three pre-season games and they will televise all non-exclusive games in the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs, should the Red Wings qualify.
“FSN continues to lead the NHL in technological advances by airing a substantial number of Red Wings games in high-definition on FSN HD (HD schedule to be announced at a later date),” according to spokesman Tim Bryant.
The popular duo of Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond returned as the Wings TV announce crew with former Wing Larry Murphy filling in for Redmond during select road games. John Keating serves as host of the “Red Wings Live” pre-game shows which air 30 minutes prior to most game. Mickey York, FSN’s primary anchorman will be at many “Red Wings Live” post-game telecasts with live reaction, analysis and game highlights. FSN Detroit has earned 45 Michigan Emmys since 2000, including honors this past season for Station Excellence and their promotion of the HD coverage of the Wings.
Channel 4 will feature select Red Wings pre-game and post-game shows anchored by Bernie Smilovitz with Redmond and Katrina Hancock, when the club is on NBC later this season.
- LOCAL RADIO: All 82 regular-season and all post-season games will be carried live by 97.1 FM, “The Ticket” with award-winning Ken Kal and Paul Woods providing the call. Kal received recognition of his Stanley Cup-calling season one year ago by winning the prestigious Ty Tyson Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting this summer from the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association.
- NATIONAL TV: Three season highlights: The NHL season on Versus-TV opened in Europe October 4-5 as the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning traveled to Prague, Czech Republic, and the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators played two games against each other in Stockholm, Sweden. It is the second consecutive year the NHL opened regular-season play in Europe.
On January 1, 2009, NBC in the U.S. and CBC and RDS in Canada will televise NHL Winter Classic 2009, featuring the Wings and Chicago Black Hawks playing at historic Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. The matinee game will be the second regular-season outdoor NHL game played in the U.S. and the third regular-season outdoor game in league history.
The 57th NHL All-Star Game will be played January 25 in Montreal, which will host the 2009 game as part of the celebration of the club’s 100th anniversary. The game, as well as All-Star Saturday on Jan. 24, will be seen live on Versus in the U.S. and CBC and RDS in Canada.
Versus and NBC return for a fourth season as the NHL’s national television partners. Versus opened its fourth year of NHL coverage with a doubleheader on October 5. Versus’ schedule includes seven appearances by the Wings which began with the opener last week. In all, Versus will televise 56 regular-season games, All-Star weekend, games in each round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals. Every game on Versus is produced and shown in HD where available.
Versus announcers include Mike “Doc” Emrick, analyst Eddie Olczyk, Dave Strader and reporter Bob Harwood. Studio hosts include Bill Patrick, Brian Engblom and Keith Jones.
After NBC (WDIV-TV locally) launches its NHL coverage New Year’s Day, the NHL “Game of the Week” starts January 18 when the Penguins host the Rangers. Face-off is 12:30 p.m. for all NBC games except April 12 at 2 p.m. Up to five Wings games could end up on NBC and channel 4. Emrick and Olczyk head the telecasts.
The NHL and NBC will again collaborate on flexible scheduling for NBC’s regular-season dates, providing fans the most exciting match-up available. NBC will select from up to four games on Sunday afternoons. Thirteen days prior to the scheduled game, a game will be selected for broadcast on NBC. The network also has postseason telecasts including Games 3-7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
In Canada, CBC (channel 9) began its 56th consecutive year of NHL coverage October 4 on “Hockey Night in Canada.” The 69-game schedule for the season is headlined by 25 all-Canadian match-ups. CBC’s “Hockey Day in Canada” will celebrate its ninth annual broadcast on February 21 from Campbellton, New Brunswick. Three Red Wings games are slated for CBC including the New Year’s Day game at Wrigley Field.
CBC play-by-play is delivered by Bob Cole, Jim Hughson and Mark Lee. Analysts are Cassie Campbell, Don Cherry, Harry Neale, Marc Crawford, Garry Galley, Kelly Hrudey, Greg Millen, Mike Milbury, Scott Morison, Craig Simpson and P.J. Stock. Hosts include Ron MacLean, Steve Armitage, Elliotte Friedman, Scott Oake and Bruce Rainnie. CBC’s pregame show is “Hockey Tonight” and its post-game show, “After Hours.”
Canada’s TSN began covering the NHL in 1985 and is once again the national English-language cable partner. TSN begins its new six-year broadcast and digital rights agreement with the NHL featuring more coverage of Canadian teams than ever before. The network will televise 70 regular-season games and, for the first time, all games will feature at least one of the NHL’s Canadian teams and will be available nationally in HD. Five Wings games are featured on TSN while three are slated on TSN2.
TSN/TSN2 broadcasters include host James Duthrie, play-by-play men Gord Miller and Chris Cuthbert, analyst Pierre Maguire and studio analysts Bob McKenzie, Darren Dreger and Dave Hodge.
RDS, the French-language telecast partner of the NHL, enters its sixth year of NHL coverage. This season, RDS will televise all 82 Montreal games and 29 other NHL games, including 5 Red Wings contests. Sister network RIS will carry 45 NHL games with four featuring Detroit.
RDS and RIS announcers include host Alain Crete, studio analysts Jacques Demers, play-by-play voice Pierre House, analyst Benoit Brunet and reporter Chantal Machabee.
NHL Network began its fourth season of televising live regular season games in Canada and its second season showing live games in the U.S. NHL Network this season will televise 75 live games for its American audience and 40 live NHL games for its Canadian viewers. All games shown in the U.S. will be in HD. In addition, the network’s signature show, “NHL On The Fly,” returns nightly providing highlights and analysis of every game.
Highlighting the schedule is the inclusion of CBC’s award-winning Hockey Night In Canada, available to U.S. fans for the first time. Every Saturday night, NHL Network will not only broadcast the live Hockey Night In Canada double-header, but also the CBC pre-game and post-game shows.
Regular-season coverage on NHL Network also includes 26 double-headers and one triple-header, 17 Wednesday-night games featuring TSN’s broadcast of Wednesday Night Hockey and five games featuring the Wings.
ESPN will feature NHL coverage on SportsCenter, ESPNews and ESPN.com as well as other network platforms. Matthew Barnaby, a 15-year NHL veteran player, has signed on as a hockey analyst, replacing Barry Melrose who now coaches the NHL Lightning.
NATIONAL RADIO: Westwood One Radio returns its “This Week in the NHL” radio show with host Sam Rosen and co-hosts Mike Emrick, Bob McKenzie, Jim Fox, Steve Coates and Joe Tolleson. Game action includes a weekly selection, the Winter Classic, All-Star Game and the Stanley Cup Finals.
Reach George Eichorn at geichorn@yahoo.com.
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By George B. Eichorn
Columnist
Back-to-back. In sports, this feat has a special ring to it. Winning back-to-back championships is a mountain to climb yet once you’re there, it’s an outstanding accomplishment.
The Detroit Red Wings will need to avoid a Stanley Cup hangover in order to succeed where few National Hockey League teams have gone – winning back-to-back titles. The Cup banner is raised and the season gets under way this Thursday, October 9, at Joe Louis Arena when the Red Wings host the Toronto Maple Leafs at 8 p.m. in front of a sellout crowd and international television audience numbering millions.
The 11th Stanley Cup in franchise history will be celebrated one last time in pre-game ceremonies (starting at 7:30 p.m.) as team captain Nicklas Lidstrom helps raise the championship banner to the rafters at The Joe. It will be a special moment for the players, management and fans as all the hard work and effort that comprised the 2007-08 Red Wings season is rewarded with the banner ceremony. Team announcers Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond will serve as co-emcees. The game is televised on Versus and CBC-TV yet not on local television. WXYT-FM 97.1 has the radio account with Ken Kal and Paul Woods.
Yet after the ceremony, Detroit coach Mike Babcock will tell his 2008-2009 edition of players that that was in the past and present is now! Every team in the NHL will out to defeat the Red Wings because, as the cliché goes, there’s a target on the back of the champions. Everyone wants to beat the champs – in hockey and every sport. Toronto will get the first crack at the Wings.
If a team could have gotten better after winning it all a year earlier, it’s the Wings. By signing top-line winger Marian Hossa from the Pittsburgh Penguins, Wings’ management under executive vice president and general manager Ken Holland, signaled a willingness to again go for the jugular and try to repeat as Cup champions. The only players gone from the title team goaltender Dominik Hassek and spunky forward Dallas Drake, both of whom retired. The acquisition of Hossa and backup netminder Ty Conklin makes the Wings as much as a favorite to win it all as they were last season entering the opener.
The Wings are the last NHL team to win back-to-back Cups (1997 and 1998) while the New Jersey Devils are the last to make it to consecutive Cup Finals (2000-2001). The league has seen eight different finalists the last four Finals (the maximum). What’s even more surprising, the 10 finalists have advanced past the first round of the playoffs the following season. After the Wings won the Cup in 2002 (defeating Carolina), they finished the following season at 48-20-10-4 (1st Central) but were eliminated in round one.
The top Wings forward line is expected to be Hossa (he had a groin strain at presstime), center Pavel Datsyuk and winger Tomas Holmstrom. Another line should find high-scoring center Henrik Zetterberg with wingers Johan Franzen (coming off a 27-goal season) and Jiri Hudler. Center Valterri Filppula anchors the third line with Mikael Samuelsson on one wing and probably Tomas Kopecky on the other. The fourth line could include center Kris Draper and wingers Dan Cleary and Kirk Maltby. Others contending for the final forward roster spot(s) are Aaron Downey, Darren Helm, Ville Leno and Darren McCarty.
Detroit opens the season without former all-star defenseman Chris Chelios, 46, and entering his 25th NHL season. Chelios is out up to six weeks with a fractured right tibia (foot) after blocking a shot in an exhibition game at Montreal on September 30. The defense is anchored by six-time Norris Trophy winner Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski, Brad Stuart, Niklas Kronwall, Andreas Lilja, Brett Lebda and youngsters Kyle Quincey and Derek Meech, the Red Wings-Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association Rookie of the Year in 2007-08. Quincey and Meech will both not stick this season as one goes when Celios returns.
Likely headed for Grand Rapids, the club’s top minor league affiliate, are Downey, Kopecky, McCarty, defenseman Jonathan Ericsson and goalie Jimmy Howard.
Besides Lidstrom (Norris) other trophy winners for the Wings last season include Zetterberg (Conn Smythe-MVP), Datsyuk (Lady Byng-Sportsmanlike and Selke-Top Defensive Forward) and Osgood-Hasek (Jennings-Team Goals Against). Former Red Wings great Gordie Howe received the NHL Lifetime Achievement Award too. Lidstrom was the first European-born team captain to lift the Stanley Cup while Zetterberg was the first European-born playoffs MVP.
Lidstrom, Chelios, Draper and Maltby are eyeing major career milestones this season. Lidstrom is 62 points from 1,000 and would be the eighth defenseman to reach that plateau; Chelios needs 20 games to pass Scott Stevens (1,635) for fifth place on the all-times games played list and 24 games to pass Dave Andreychuk (1,639) for fourth; Draper needs 50 games (950 now) to reach 1,000 and Maltby needs 58 (at 942) for 1,000 NHL games.
A national highlight of the new NHL season is the Detroit-Chicago Original Six showdown being played on January 1 in Wrigley Field (home of the baseball Cubs) on an outdoor rink, similar to previous outdoor games in Edmonton and Buffalo. Wings goalie Conklin is aiming for his third outdoor game as he participated in the two previous ones. Schedule-wise this season, for the first time since 2003-04, every NHL team will play at least one game against each of the other 29.
Honors galore for ex-Wings this season as Hall of Famers Alex Delvecchio (October 16) and Ted Lindsay (October 18) are feted at The Joe; Lindsay receives the prestigious Lester Patrick Award on October 22; Brett Hull enters the USA Hockey Hall of Fame October 10 and Igor Larionov is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 10. The Montreal Canadiens are celebrating their 100th anniversary with numerous events including host to the 57th NHL All-Star Game on January 25 at Bell Centre and to the NHL 2009 Entry Draft, June 26-27.
Eichorn’s NHL division winning picks — Detroit, Colorado, Anaheim, Montreal, Pittsburgh and Carolina. Stanley Cup Finals: Detroit over Pittsburgh. Scott Morganroth contributed to this story.
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