BY SCOTT MORGANROTH of the Detroit Monitor

It may be a while before Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland gets his two wishes that his club joins the Eastern Conference or moves into a State Of The Art Stadium, but it doesn’t stop his wheels from turning thinking about both becoming a reality.

During his tenure, Holland has guided the Red Wings to four Stanley Cup Championships in 10 years while accumulating frequent flyer miles taking countless trips to the West Coast.

The Western Conference may provide the glamour of Southern California featuring Disney & Hollywood, the Golden Gate Bridge of the San Francisco Bay Area, Desert & Cactus Country of Phoenix, Rocky Mountains of Colorado, loud & rowdy fans of Western Canada, but Holland is proud that his teams have achieved championship success the hard way via jet lag. Even though Detroit has a private airplane, the time zones do indeed change.

When Holland accompanied the Red Wings to Florida, he was greeted by Palm Trees and transplanted Detroiters at the St.Pete Times Forum in Tampa and the Bank Atlantic Center (BAC) in Sunrise.

There were plenty of Steve Yzerman (19) and Sergei Federov (91) jerseys on display in the arenas and in the parking lots.

On November 14, my father Michael Morganroth attended a Red Wings Road game for the first time with a friend. For years, my father and Uncle Robert Strohl were season ticket holders at Olympia Stadium and Joe Louis Arena. My father was amazed at the Red Wings Road following! But he never saw games in Sun Belt cities like Phoenix or Tampa because if he did, his brain would be spinning like a top. They are bigger hot beds than the Metropolitan Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area.

What Holland enjoyed about returning to Florida was in addition to seeing Red and White jerseys, his body clock stayed the same.

In the spacious press box of the BAC, Holland took the time in this interview to discuss what would be on his future Christmas wish lists about what gifts he’d like his organization to receive.

Q: How do you like being in Florida?

A: I love it. I would like to be down here a little more often. I’m disappointed because I do the scheduling and wish I would have scheduled a couple more off days. Anytime you can get around and see all of the buildings, and we played last night in Tampa, it was at least half full with Red Wings fans plus to see a lot more tonight, I think it’s just great that the fans in every building get to see all of the teams.

Q: What seems to be the major opposition to see a home and home series against the Eastern Conference?

A: We’ve presented and proposed to the league about a year ago that you play everybody in the other conference home and away. Probably a lot of the teams from the far West and Coasts, they feel there would be a lot of travel plus wear and tear on their players along with extra dollars. We’ve at least have gone from 10 to 18 games against the other conference so that’s a step in the right direction.

Q: Don’t you feel that it’s unfair that the Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets have the toughest travel schedule?

A: Yes. Especially for us in the playoffs the past few years. Playing Calgary, San Jose, Vancouver, we’ve done our fair share of travel. We just think that the fans would want to see Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins) Henrik Zetterberg, Jarome Iginla that all 30 fans should see them and all of the great players.

Q: What would it take for the Red Wings to move to the Eastern Conference?

A: There are two possibilities. One would be a team from the East move to the West and we can take their place. The other would be if you had expansion and there is talk about putting a team in Las Vegas. If there is expansion, we’d push to get into the Eastern Conference. Our fans want us to be in the Eastern Conference. We want our road games in prime time. When we’re out in California, our road games start at 10:30 and when fans are at home, they watch the first period and have to go to bed to go to work the next day.

I think expansion is going to come but we might be five to six years away. If the economy turns around, we have to make sure that all the franchises are healthy. I think the game is growing, the salary cap is going up which means there is more revenue. There is more minor league leagues in the South like the Texas League, East Coast is down here and you’ll have lots and lots of hockey fans. Right now, we’re not ready for expansion.

Q: Do you think Red Wings fans will see more games with original six teams?

A: With us being an original six team, we’d like to see everybody. But you have to take all the wants and needs of all the teams into consideration.

Q: I know this is far fetched but with Tiger Stadium’s future in doubt and Detroit’s economy is bad, how would the idea of new Olympia Stadium being built on that site sound do you? Since Mike Illitch has done so much for Detroit Sports, from a publicity standpoint, it would be a great way to connect the older generations to the new one?

A: Yes. It would be a great idea but you’re preaching to the choir. But this is one of the buildings we’re looking at but right now it’s not one of the greatest times to considering to building a building. But I would think at some point in time, we’ll either renovate “The Joe”or build a new building. I think this building is a beautiful building. We come only down here once every three years. It’s a great building for hockey, it has a great concourse during the warm-up, lots of room down there, beautiful building for the fans, wonderful building to view the game and a tremendous press box.

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