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Imagine, for a second, a long held dream opens up and becomes a reality. Even just as a part time blogger, a team that you’d wanted to write about/blog about for 10 years as you worked on other inroads finally has an opening. In 2009, even with the playoff loss, there was a waiting list for anything to do with the Red Wings. Probably even for the job of dumping ice in the restroom “troughs” at the Joe. In 2019, after writing for college, about hockey equipment and posting content on fan boards I got the nod. “Do you want to give it a try?”

Some of your first coverage is an entire draft of kids wearing the number 19 as the owner of that retired number returned to Detroit after a rebuild in Tampa. The gasps as Seider was drafted, the stories that came later, it felt like an incredible time. Fast forward to this moment right now.

The comments section, the feed on “X”, journalists who have followed this team for 30+ years and fans are at a level of collective disgust it is almost impossible to have imagined. There are still a few voices but every day you stare at the screens and hope that something will move in the right direction. Anything. The irony of watching video clips of the Lions as they have the city glowing and then seeing “Yzerman” as a top trend for all the wrong reasons is a full 180 degrees away from Lidstrom’s inaugural season and a career marked by never missing the playoffs to seeing and hearing disdain on a grand scale. People are walking away after an optimistic end of the regular season was followed by a train wreck.

The dream is on its ear for now. Detroit will face the Avalanche and please, broadcast team, stop talking about a “new rivalry”. The Avs stats aren’t great, but they are a recent cup winner. What pulled us in during the 90s and into the early 2000s does not exist. There isn’t a steady stream of hall of fame players coming through the doors in Detroit. Those players are wearing ties and sitting in the ownership boxes. Those players, if rumor can be translated to truth, swung and missed badly in attempts to bring in talent to help develop the draft and build model. Instead, a 21 and 23 year old lead the D and have to essentially mentor themselves. Larkin, Raymond, Debrincat carry the scoring weight as the drop off from that line is steep.

In hours of hunting down drafted players for some look at the future, a look down 96 is certainly brighter but Campbell didn’t have a great kickoff to his return. The most exciting part of this team is somewhere else. It’s not guaranteed, but there are picks stirring up excitement in Europe, the NCAA and Grand Rapids. Emails, phone calls and texts to coaches and staff from the WHL to the NCAA to Slovakia over the past 2 weeks yielded little, but some interesting rumors and hearsay. That will be in an upcoming video.

It is on the staff and the players and ownership to decide they’ve had enough or just duck and wait out the season. We don’t know what phone calls were made, we only know what hasn’t happened. Whatever “almost” happened makes zero difference. Take it all in and imagine staring out of a window for an hour as you try to put some sort of meaningful context into virtual print so you can watch the level of disgust continue to rise.

Unabashedly, I love this team. I was born at the right time. In 1997, a month after a long awaited Stanley Cup parade, I met the woman I’d marry 2 years later. Of 4 cups, we were married for two of them and just months away from being engaged for the 1998 celebration. I don’t know what to tell the new generation of fans. As a kid my parents boss owned the Pistons and couldn’t give tickets away in the early 80s and the CEO of our Friday night family/friend get together pizza shop bought “the dead wings” and changed everything. I saw a World Series win, 3 NBA wins and 4 Stanley Cups. Now it’s the Lion’s turn.

This is not a normal pregame entry. It is the culmination of months and years of hope for many of the fans hitting a wall. The magic isn’t there right now, but there are still players, staff and even fans that believe it can be restored. Tonight is another opportunity to increase or decrease that hope.

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