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Hossa No Lossa

For all of Marian Hossa's skill, talent and respect, he ought to be lauded by Detroit Red Wing fans for his decision to sign with the Chicago Blackhawks, thus spurning the Wings' $4 million-per-year offer.

Yes, that rather large echo you're hearing is a collective, "Thank God" from Red Wing fans nationwide.

Hossa's legacy in hockey thus far? His inability to lead two conference champions in two consecutive years to a Stanley Cup championship. In 2008, as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins, he and Sidney Crosby were runner-ups to the league's perennial powerhouse, Detroit, losing in six games. He would have been lucky to have been only saddled with this legacy but a year later, his star fell further.

In June Hossa was author to one of the biggest chokes in superstar history. He failed to score a goal in seven games of the Stanley Cup Finals, a series that his new team, the then-defending Cup champions Wings, dropped to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Hossa not only posted nothing but a greasy, fat doughnut in the goals department, he avoided the punishment of driving to the goal and engaging in distracting the goaltender like it was a deadly disease and was the one component of the Red Wings who didn't contribute. His failures in the seven-game series could be the reason the series went seven games at all, much less Detroit losing the deciding game in its' outdated but ferocious barn, Joe Louis Arena.

Losing Hossa to the Blackhawks might be a blessing in disguise for Detroit, which needs a defensive overhaul and will now have the salary cap space to do it by saying goodbye to a superstar who was anything but when it mattered most.

HANDSHAKE-GATE: I could care less about Sidney Crosby's excuse for not participating in the handshake line after his Pittsburgh Penguins de-throned the defending champions, 2-1, at Detroit's Joe Louis Arena.

You honor the sport, the great players who served before you and the sports' heritage by shaking hands. Crosby was too busy, apparantly caught up in the 'Me' of the moment, so to speak. I don't remember captains Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman or Mario Lemuiex being too busy to shake hands, regardless if their teams won or lost a playoff series.

It's all bush-league semantics. Crosby is the captain of the Stanley Cup champions. He should have been a man and shook hands.

~T.C. Cameron authored two prep sports rivalry books focused on metro Detroit's prep football and basketball scene from 2008-09 while passionately rooting for the Red Wings. His author site is located at www.TCCameron.com

Walking Away Not a Tough Decision

ADRIAN, Mich -- In a watershed moment Saturday night at Adrian College, one fellow umpire proved his overbearing ego and personal misfortune a recipe for an angry, threatening, over-the-top explosion. It led to the easiest decision I've ever made in officiating.

I walked away.

When an umpire accepts an officiating assignment, especially so in and around collegiate competition, there's an expectation that a level of professionalism will follow. Sometimes you get all of that expectation met, and sometimes you don't. For this one evening, I got none of it and moreover, I wondered if my partner was so enraged, he would knock my lights outs.

Last night I walked away with full knowledge I could be fingered as the guilty party. I've seen it before. In these tough economic times, blame gets thrown around easily and assignors are a tricky bunch. They want the pay for the job but sometimes don't want to be responsible for the ugliness that can mar their reputation. I learned that a few years ago when a 400-pound umpire held more stature with the assignor because he had previously been a great umpire turned suck-up with coaches and assignors to keep earning assignments that his weight would ordinarily eliminate him from. The funny thing is I wasn't the one enraged and unrational; I was the one smart enough to know right from wrong as it relates to professionalism, but I might be the easier target for blame because I walked away from the game.

When trust between umpires is broken to this extreme, self-preservation and dignity becomes a priority above your responsibility to the game. The ironic fact I chuckled about as I drove home? Three, maybe fours years ago, my response to this type of aggression might have been an equally-aggressive response. Today, with a wife, three children and a career to think about, that response is more easily muted with common sense.

It's become an angry region in some parts of the Great Lakes. Unemployment is rampant, financial pressure is unrelenting while hopes regarding quality of life and expectations for success slip away faster than water drains out of a brand-new tub. In the locker room before Game One, my partner begged off the nine-inning plate game to secure the seven-inning plate game, and I offered no fight, happily accepting the nine-inning game behind the plate. A few minutes later he revealed he's been out of work since February. I even volunteered I would be willing to make a call on this umpire's behalf for potential employment, an offer that will pass unfulfilled.

I have a lot of empathy for the people struggling to make ends meet. I lost my position at The Oakland Press to citizen journalists -- code for volunteer writers --  this past March and my position with my company is being relocated while my wife is forced to take a healthy pay cut and benefit reduction.

My life isn't any better or worse than anyone else's. Regardless of anything bad that happens, none of this gives anyone the right to curse, degrade and physically threaten others because times are tough. I've been witness to a handful of locker room spats between officials. A couple I've been a first-hand participant but most have been between others. Usually ego and emotion are the greater evils than disagreements and decision-making. Last night was so far beyond anything rational, there was little choice to do anything but leave.

Had I witnessed a player or assistant coach berate and threaten the manager or head coach in the manner my partner blasted me verbally and threatened my physically, I would have lost any and all respect for the manager if that player or coach had been allowed to play or coach in the next game. I'm not the assignor, so eliminating the umpire, clearly off the reservation so to speak, wasn't an option. I would have gladly worked the game alone, but my partner's tirade painted him in a corner without a way out, so that idea wasn't an option.

I walked away with no regrets. Nothing is worth your safety or dignity. The people who suffer are the players and coaches who have to endure this level of idiocy. I just wonder if the assignor and coaches will see the true villain in all this or will the easy out be me?

~T.C. Cameron authored two prep sports books, had his blog syndicated statewide and has worked three collegiate sports for almost ten years. Cameron is the Media Manager for Cliff Keen Athletic, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

No. 25 Joins No. 6 As A Legendary Uniform Number For The Kaline Family

DETROIT -- 56 years ago today, on June 25, 1953 against the Philadelphia A's, 18-year-old Baltimore Southern High School grad Al Kaline made his major league debut for the Detroit Tigers. He was a late-inning defensive replacement for outfielder Jim Delsing and was wearing an over-sized uniform that didn't fit.

Kaline was wearing No. 25. The Tigers lost, 5-2, which presented backwards would read 2-5, or 25.

If this comes as a surprise, it ought to. Kaline's famous No. 6 is so prominently associated with the Hall-Of-Fame rightfielder, the smaller, more innocuous details are easily swept away. In fact, Kaline is most often compared with St. Louis Cardinal legend Stan 'The Man' Musial, who also wore No. 6. The Tigers and Cardinals, two of the proudest franchises in all of baseball history, also compare with striking similarity.

Rick Thompson, the Tigers' media director, acknowledged the fact but also noted that there's no known date of switching with Tiger outfielder Pat Mullin for the No. 6. Baseball Almanac lists Kaline wearing No. 25 in 1953 and No. 6 in 1954, but other web sites go as far as 1955 until the switch. Most likely the switch took place before the 1954 season, because the Almanac website doesn't list Mullin as a Tiger in 1954 while listing Kaline wearing No. 6 in '54.

"Dad did wear No. 25 that first season, and not many people know it, " son Michael Kaline explained on the phone today. "I can't remember when he switched, but it was after that first season."

The No. 25 is notable to me because I wear No. 25 in baseball and lacrosse games I officiate. My father, who passed away almost 15 years ago, never got to see me officiate a game and never saw me run a single race as a collegiate athlete. He missed the final game at Tiger Stadium, our mutual favorite place to spend a few hours, when Rob Fick, wearing No. 25, hit an eighth-inning grand slam that will live on in Detroit sports lore. Because 'Stormin' Norman Cash was the player most-associated with No. 25 and one of Dad's favorite Tigers to boot, I wear the number as a simple, silent way to keep my father with me in spirit in the years since his passing.

However, No. 25 is notable in Kaline family history, not nearly as much as his No. 6 the Tigers retired on August 17, 1980 as the first uniform number retired in team history, but nonetheless notable. I've known the Kalines for nearly 10 years since I accompanied their family to Cooperstown in June of 2001 with Head Coach Mark Sackett and the Birmingham Red Sox. Sackett is the son of longtime Birmingham Seaholm coach Don Sackett, who guided the 1988 Seaholm baseball team to one of the most improbable state championships in Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) history.

Michael's son, Colin, was just under 12 years old then for the team's trip to Cooperstown Dreams Park wearing No. 6 for the Red Sox. Today Colin Kaline is a strapping 180-pound infielder for Florida Southern, a Division-II university that plays its' home games at Lakeland, Florida's Henley Field, where the Detroit Tigers used to train before relocating across town to the team's current Tiger Town complex nearly 60 years ago.

During that trip to Cooperstown Michael explained the pressure of wearing No. 6 as the son of the hall-of-famer during his playing days at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He talked openly of the mean-spirited comments opposing players and fans screamed at him and soon switched away from No. 6, as did his son Colin, who wore No. 5 as a varsity player at Groves.

But while No. 6 doesn't follow the younger Kalines, No. 25 does. Besides Al Kaline wearing No. 25 while debuting 56 years ago on June 25th, the Tigers drafted Colin two years ago in the 25th round of the amateur player draft when Colin completed an All-State season as a senior at Birmingham Groves High School with Cooperstown teammate Jay Sackett, now playing for the Alma College Scots. Alma is where Kaline's 1968 teammate, Jim Northrup, played collegiately.

Finally, there's the Cash connection to the Kalines and the No. 25. The power-hitting first baseman played nearly 15 seasons with the Tigers after being plucked from the Cleveland Indians in 1960 for Steve Demeter, one of the most-sided trades in Tiger history. Cash's on-field exploits, including his four roof-clearing homeruns and an at-bat with a table leg, managed to overshadow his off-field antics, including the barbeque parties he offered his suburban neighbors and the common-man mentality he approached nearly every facet of his life with, including the tears he shed when the Tigers released him on August 7, 1974.

Cash was a God parent to the son of Kaline. Cash's God son? Michael Kaline.

~ T.C. Cameron is a Detroiter en route to a new life in Baltimore, where Al Kaline was born and raised until being signed by scout Ed Katalinas and gifted to metro Detroiters and Tiger fans everywhere in 1953.

Ballpark's Final Days Long Overdue

DETROIT -- Tiger Stadium is falling to the ground for good, and I for one am thankful.

There's not much to defend in the City of Detroit's infrastructure of government and politics. Detroit has been the runaway train of choice for corrupt, morally-bankrupt vultures for almost four decades. The city's ruins and southeast Michigan's regional depression are due to policy leaders, business tycoons and elected officials who've largely ignored the obvious socio-economic problems plaguing the city since the 1950s. However, the decision to raze the ballpark is exempt from this deserved ire.

I'm a life-long Tiger fan. No matter where I live and no matter what I'm doing, I'll be a Tiger fan. I never go to bed without knowing how the Tigers did that night. My father listened to the replays of the 1968 World Series broadcast on Armed Forces Radio in the dead of the night during his first of two tours in Vietnam. By comparison, I'm a passionate Red Wings fan but I'm OK with the morning radio report or internet check for the Wings. The Tigers will always be my first love, and Tiger Stadium was the one place in the world I always wanted to be on every given day as a child.

I'm thrilled to see it finally fall.

The long, ungraceful demise of the old ballpark is an ugly reminder of the inept city leadership that follows Detroit like dust and dirt follows PigPen from the Peanuts. The chipping paint, overgrown weeds, rusting light standards and accumulated trash left the ballpark a hulking ruin of mold, pollen and weeds. And it's not like this is the first classic piece of stadia to be allowed to rot in 'The D'. The fabled Olympia Stadium, one of the original cathedrals of hockey, sat vacant at Grand River & McGraw, shadowing Detroit's Northwestern High, from 1979 until the summer of 1986 when the city finally saw fit to demolish the 'Old Red Barn'.

If you think the ballpark was a hallowed house -- and it was -- the Olympia was every bit as charmed as Tiger Stadium, maybe more. It's where the Michigan High School Athletic Association first hosted all four classes of the annual boys' basketball title games. Olympia hosted Elvis Presley and The Beatles. The fortress at 5920 Grand River hosted rock n' roll's greatest band, Led Zeppelin, on three different occasions and every Hall-Of-Fame hockey player to play in the NHL until her last game on 15 December, 1979. Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, Maurice Richard, Terry Sawchuk, the list is literally endless. The building played host to the Pistons and Harlem Globetrotters, and hosted the 1947 city championship prep game, one that drew an amazing 16,041 fans to watch Will Robinson's Detroit Miller Trojans defeat Detroit St. Joesph.

As a thank you for all this amazing history, the city of Detroit, in it's infinite wisdom, let the red-bricked lady fall into near-decrepit condition over seven years before letting the Olympia go with an ungraceful goodbye.

Nearly 25 years after Olympia fell and 10 years after the Tigers threw their last pitch at the park, Tiger Stadium will thankfully fall into memory. The park didn't deserve this goodbye anymore than the Olympia did. Shame on the city, the Tigers and the fans of the park for not having a better plan, better funding and more dignity than this drawn-out, publicly-financed feud between a few thousand stadium zealots and the vision-less city government charged with ensuring the stadium's legacy.

So I say goodbye, Tiger Stadium. Thanks for the great times with my father, mother, even my ill-mannered sister, too. Thanks for the Opening Days with family and friends. Thanks for that echo from the public address system that filled the double-decked labyrinth. Thanks for ultra-crisp crack of the bat. Thanks for batting practice and the sound of the ball crashing into the seats or into the facade known as the short porch in rightfield. Thanks for the ramps, the posts and the roar of the crowd. Thanks for the ovations a visiting player received when he made a great catch, or the standing O a Tiger outfielder was showered with when he returned to the field after hitting a home run.

But most of all, thanks for giving me enough great memories that I won't have to remember the stadium for her final days of destruction. I don't trust the City of Detroit's leadership, Tiger Stadium closed long ago, and goodbyes were never meant to stand in the way of the future.

Farewell.

~T.C. Cameron attended his first game at Tiger Stadium on July 28, 1980, when the California Angels bested Detroit 3-2. Richie Hebner flew out to left to end the game. Cameron went to every Tigers' Opening Day from 1981 until 2009, when health concerns snapped the streak. The Tigers remain a daily ritual of summertime for Cameron and millions of Tiger fans nationwide.

(Photo courtesy of former Tiger pitcher C.J. Nitkowski, who generously shared this gallery with the author in 2007)

Does Datsyuk's Return Spell Detroit's 12th Cup?

DETROIT -- The question on the minds of National Hockey League fans is obvious this morning -- does Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk really make that much difference? His return Saturday night jump-started Detroit's eight-cylinder, four-line machine and turned a tense Game Five in a Red Wing runaway.

Last night the Pittsburgh Penguins were no match for the high-octane Red Wings, who administered a 5-0 whitewash in Game Five of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals to take a three games to two lead in the best-of-seven series. Sidelined by a foot injury for the first four games of the Finals, the Hart Trophy finalist returned to Detroit's lineup in the Joe Louis Arena and gave a beleaguered Red Wing team an instant jolt of confidence and energy. Datsyuk's first shift of the game at the 18:50 mark of the first period saw the highly-skilled Russian administer a punishing check on Evgeni Malkin. His passing was a game-long tape-to-tape skill session and his two assists gave the Wings the help they needed on what had become a near-powerless power play through the first four games of the Finals.

The Wings took control of the game when Dan Cleary banged home a shot thanks to a nifty assist to Datsyuk at 13:32 of the first. It was a big momentum swing because the faster Pens had owned the first eight minutes, skating almost exclusively in the Detroit end.

In the second period, Detroit tied a Stanley Cup Finals record by scoring three power play goals in the stanza, joining five other teams to pull off the trick. It was in the middle period that the Pens began to disintegrate in a Chicago-esque loss of poise, especially by Malkin, Sydney Crosby and Maxime Talbot, who all took runs at Detroit's team of skill players. Crosby slashed Detroit's Henrik Zetterberg in the second, Malkin slashed Datsyuk on his injured foot early in the third to earn one of his three penalties and Talbot's second penalty late in the game earned him a game misconduct. After assessing one penalty against each team in the first period, the Pens took 11 of the last 13 penalties, including all five in the 2nd and six of eight in the third.

Detroit netminder Chris Osgood recorded his 15th shutout in his playoff career (behind only Marty Brodeur among active goalies) also assisted on Detroit's 2nd goal, making a shrewd pass to Detroit winger Marian Hossa, who assisted Valtteri Filppula's nifty backhand past an overmatched Marc-Andre Fleury. Fleury was removed from his position between the pipes after Detroit's fifth goal with almost 25 minutes of game time remaining. It's a smart move by Pens Coach Dan Bylsma. Better to allow your netminder a opportunity to wash the game off his collective consciousness and end the lost cause early than allow your most important player to endure another 25 minutes of game time on the ice, alone to suffer the mental anguish of an awful effort.

Regardless of the who and why from Saturday's stat sheets and game notes, the question regarding Datsyuk remains. Did one player fundamentally change the Finals? Datsyuk is a fiercely proficient backchecker, as sure a puck-handler in the NHL today and Detroit with Datsyuk looked the like the team Pittsburgh never wanted to see Saturday night. The Red Wings find themselves in the same position from a year ago, needing just a Game Six win in Pittsburgh to win the Stanley Cup.

~T.C. Cameron, an unabashed hockey fan, authored two Detroit prep sports history books through Arcadia Publishing. Cameron officiates college football, baseball, basketball and high school lacrosse.

Panic In Detroit; Pen Pal Overload

If you're a follower of the Detroit Red Wings, this morning is filled with worry and a lot of trepidation.

As if the Pittsburgh Penguins didn't merely look faster, stronger and more determined in the past two games, they were all that and more in disposing of the Wings, 4-2, in Pittsburgh last night. After a pair of 3-1 Detroit victories in Joe Louis Arena, the Pens notched a pair of equally convincing 4-2 wins to tie the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals at 2-2. Saturday's Game Five in 'The Joe' becomes moving day for both teams.

I wonder if so much outstanding hockey has bled the tanks dry in the Red Wing dressing room. The Wings have played five grueling games in eight days, dating back to last Wednesday's 2-1 overtime winner over the Chicago Blackhawks in Joe Louis. That victory clinched the Western Conference for Detroit. Add four blistering games versus Pittsburgh in a mind-boggling five days and Detroit looks like a weary bunch.

It's not fair to Detroit to make them play so much hockey in such a short time (from their position in the Western Conference notwithstanding), but life isn't fair. If the Red Wings have any hopes of defending their title as Cup champions, their mission is rather simple. They'll have to overcome the temporary fatigue to achieve Cup glory forever.

No one said the road to 16 wins would be easy, and so far the Wings have been very proficient in achieving their first 14. Last night was the first night the Wings looked tired and dazed. They uncharacteristically turned over the puck left and right, allowed the Pens an inordinate amount of 2-on-1's and 3-on-2's and probably should have lost 7-2 had it not been for Chris Osgood, who stoned three or four should-be goals.

To be fair, Osgood stole two games for the Wings in Joe Louis in this series. He'll have to stand on his head again until the Wings figure out their current malaise and jam more than a handful of pucks past Pens netminder Marc-Andre Fleury.

Enough Pen Pals! I'm usually the last person to care about the slant of the television coverage because I enjoy looking outside the scope of my team, city and region, but this is shameless. The past two Versus telecasts have been overloaded with Penguins slant, tidbits and interviews. On behalf of those not living in Pittsburgh, we get it -- the Pens are the new story in the National Hockey League -- can we go back to national coverage without national bias?

I know it's a bigger deal in Pittsburgh than it is in Detroit, because the Pens are enjoying the hockey rebirth Detroit experienced in the early 1990s. Hockey is definitely en vogue in the Steel City, waiting lists three years long are forming for season tickets and even Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is caught up in the fever.

Cool. Do I need it stuffed down my throat? No. When I notice the obvious push to highlight the Pens, when Wings Coach Mike Babcock says he sees NHL commercials and wonders aloud if the Penguins won last year's Cup that his Wings won in six games and when my wife asks, "Is this Pittsburgh's television network?", there's a problem.

IdeaShop: If I were NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, I would order the Toronto Maple Leafs back into the Western Conference  so each conference has three Original Six teams. That would put Montreal, New York and Boston in the East while Toronto, Chicago and Detroit would populate the West. I would also mandate home-and-home dates on Fridays and Saturdays to better stimulate the rivalries.

The current NHL schedule is stale. First, it's unbalanced with four originals in the East and just two in the West. Second, every team's schedule is weighed down with too many match-ups carrying no emotion. Home-and-home scheduling adds that instant jolt of intensity. Let your Original Six teams carry the cache of tradition and mandate the home-and-home on the weekends to give hockey that old time feel in the new age of hockey being played in some rather non-traditional markets.

~T.C. Cameron is an unabashed hockey fan, the author of two Metro Detroit prep sports history books and a amateur/collegiate football, basketball and baseball official.

Officiating No Longer Unfair for Pens

Monday morning I did my usual sweep of the points of interest at USSportsPages.com, the premiere web site for sports fans craving all things sports in print media.

Of interest was a column by Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who complained on behalf of the team he covers in the town he lives in that the Detroit Red Wings are getting all the 'breaks' from the officiating crew assigned to the Stanley Cup Finals. The Red Wings lead the best-of-seven series 2-0 because they simply outplayed the favored Pens in the first two games. Among the lame brain crying by Collier was a declaration that the Wings' Marion Hossa was allowed to break the stick of his opponent, Pascel Dupuis, in Game One. Collier alleged the transgression led to a turnover that resulted in the Red Wings taking possession and banging home the eventual game-winning goal at 10:29 of the second period by Johan Franzen.

Never mind that all replays showed the stick had broken before Hossa made contact. Never mind that Hossa departed the Pens last summer to join the Red Wings, a point of contention that burns in the heart of Pittsburgh faithful. Never mind that each game revealed three goals for the Wings and just one for the Pens, or that Detroit netminder Chris Osgood simply outplayed his counterpart, Pittsburgh's Marc-Andre Fleury.

Fast forward to tonight's first period of Game Three, when the Pens took the lead and the Wings stormed back with a pair of goals to take a 2-1 lead in the first period. Minutes later the Penguins skated for 20 to 25 seconds in the Detroit zone with six skaters on the ice. No call. The game's announcers on Versus, Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk, campaigned for almost 20 seconds until the final Pens skater, Mark Eaton, made it to the bench. The officials then hit Dan Cleary with a holding call about 90 seconds later to give the Pens a power play. Kris Letang beat Detroit's Chris Osgood cleanly through the five-hole to tie the game with a minute to go in the five-on-four. A few minutes later, at 18:02, Johan Franzen was whistled for tripping. No matter if it was a dive or not, the call was made and Detroit had to kill another power play to end the period.

After the period ended, Christine Simpson of Versus asked Pittsburgh's Letang about the no call by saying, "You guys had too many men on the ice for a good 20-25 seconds that none of the officials caught. After some of the bad luck you guys seemed to have in the first two games, nice to have some good luck?" Letang replied: "Yeah, it's nice to have luck, I mean and all the great teams in hockey have luck. I think we have to keep playing the same way and hopefully get more luck."

The Penguins went on to a 4-2 victory, and to be clear, the officiating had nothing to do with the outcome. Both teams knew it was 2-2 at the end of the first period. Pittsburgh simply outplayed Detroit in the final stanza, scored the game-winner and earned the win.

However, if anyone thinks officiating can or cannot make an impressionable difference upon a game's outcome, the first period was must-see-TV. After surrendering the game's first goal, one that ignited a Mellon Arena crowd, the defending champs stormed back with two goals to silence the crowd. A penalty in a Stanley Cup Final that has nothing to do with judgment was missed by four officials, 19 Pittsburgh players and three coaches for almost 25 seconds. This would have resulted in a power play for Detroit and a goal might have swallowed the Pens whole.

Instead, two Detroit penalties and a power play goal mean a 2-2 tie after one period instead of a 2-1 lead and the potential to have a stranglehold on the pivotal Game Three.

You won't read about this in Referee Magazine. Publisher Barry Mano goes out of his way to not rock the boat despite his magazine's status as the only officiating periodical in the marketplace, although it's available by subscription only. Mano keeps the tenor positive with the four professional leagues his magazine opines about, fearful of being cut off if the copy is critical, even if truthful. I think this is a mistake. This isn't a regular season game, this is Game Three of the Stanley Cup Final. These are the best of the best in the league competing for the holy grail of sports trophies and the best of the best, based on ratings, in officiating circles too. I'd bet the National Hockey League's Director of Officiating, former NHL Referee Stephen Walkom, would be the first to give an honest observation of the officials he oversees. These are the games that matter most and what Mano's readers could benefit most from, learning how to avoid mistakes in the most important games.

This is why officiating matters. Perception is a powerful tool and America craves so much information regarding the how and why of the calls that matter in games America immerses itself in. It would be interesting to hear from the officials themselves how an obvious call like too many men on the ice in a Stanley Cup Final gets missed, but sadly, that information is too often passed over by the one publication that could disseminate it responsibly. What we're left with is one town's columnist ranting about an aspect of the game he knows little about, because he has few resources to call on for an informed opinion.

~T.C. Cameron authored two prep sports history books and officiates football, basketball and baseball.

June A Benchmark Month In Red Wing History

DETROIT -- Today the Detroit Red Wings and their fans find themselves up two games to none in this year's Stanley Cup Finals versus the Pittsburgh Penguins. Fans and media members alike might be surprised to know that just 14 years ago, the Wings played their first game in team history in the month of June.

Many fans might not realize how the month of June has changed the Detroit Red Wing organization, the most successful professional hockey team in the United States. The Wings, already boasting one of the most impressive pedigrees in all of professional sports, own a lineage that dates back to the now-demolished Olympia Stadium in 1926 at the intersection of Grand River Avenue & McGraw in Detroit. June is filled with dates to remember for reasons good and bad in the long history of the Red Wings, more than even the most fervent Red Wing fan might realize.

The month of June, by the numbers:

1st: Detroit defeated Chicago 2-1 in the 1995 Western Conference opener, marking the first time in team history the Red Wings played into the month of June.

2nd: Mike & Marian Ilitch purchase the team from owner Bruce Norris in 1982. The Wings were three years into a new era of hockey at Joe Louis Arena but were better known around the league as the 'Dead Things', 27 years removed from the last Cup victory of 1955.

3rd: The Red Wings trade Hall-Of-Fame netminder Terry Sawchuk in 1955 after winning the Stanley Cup. The Wings wouldn't win the Cup for another 42 years. In 1995, the Wings defeat Chicago 3-2 in Game Two of the Western Conference Finals in Joe Louis Arena.

4th: Last season, on this date, the Red Wings topped the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 at Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena to capture the team's 11th Stanley Cup. Former Red Wing defensemen Derian Hatcher was born on June 4, 1972.

7th: Darren McCarty's nifty goal in the 2nd period turns out to be the winning goal as the Red Wings break a 42-year drought and capture the eighth Stanley Cup in team history when they defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1, at Joe Louis Arena. Longtime Red Wings announcer Bruce Martyn called McCarty's game-winner of the memorable 1997 Finals.

8th: Perhaps one of the watershed days in the history of the team, a disappointed front office missed out on Waterford's Pat LaFontaine and instead drafted Steve Yzerman of the Peterborough Petes with 1983's 4th pick in the annual NHL Entry Draft. While brilliant when healthy, LaFontaine suffered from several concussions and retired in his prime. Yzerman became the longest-serving captain in NHL history, scored 692 goals and 1,755 points in the regular season and 70 playoff goals and 185 playoff points in his career. Yzerman will be a first-ballot Hall-Of-Famer when he becomes eligible.

9th: The Wings traded Roger Crozier to Buffalo for Tom Webster in 1970.

11th: Slava Kozlov, one of the acclaimed "Russian Five" the Red Wings boasted in the 1990s, scores the game-winning goal in double overtime as the Wings defeated Chicago in Game Five at Joe Louis Arena in 1995. The win pushed the Wings into their first Stanley Cup Finals since 1964, but the team was swept by the New Jersey Devils to extend a championship drought dating back to 1955.

12th: Jacques Demers was named Head Coach in 1986. Demers would earn a 137-136-47 ledger until he was released in 1990. Borje Salming was signed by the Wings in 1989 after a long stint with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

14th: Marcel Pronovost was born in 1930 in Lac-de-Tortue, Quebec, and the Wings traded Adam Oates in 1989, who they signed on June 27th, 1985, to the St. Louis Blues.

15th: Scotty Bowman, who coached the Montreal Canadians, Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins, was named Detroit head coach on this date in 1993. Bowman earned a 401-195-88-8 ledger with the Wings, winning three Cups in 1997, 1998 and 2002, when he retired from active coaching. Sergei Fedorov won both the Hart and Selke trophy on this date as well.

16th: The Wings drafted Sergei Fedorov in 1989 and the Russian defector remains the highest scoring Russian-born player  in NHL history. In 1998 on this date, Fedorov and the Wings earn the ninth Cup in team history by defeating the Washington Capitals, 4-1, to earn a Stanley Cup Finals sweep.

19th: In 1996, despite a disappointing loss to the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Finals, Scotty Bowman wins the Jack Adams Trophy, Fedorov won the Selke Trophy while Mike Vernon and Chris Osgood shared the Jennings Trophy. Longtime winger John Ogrodnick was born in 1959 in Ottawa, Ontario.

20th: The Red Wings acquire longtime Minnesota North Star Dino Ciccarelli in 1992 from Washington for Kevin Miller.

23rd: In one of the worst trades in team history, the Wings trade future Hall-Of-Famer Marcel Dionne and Bart Crashley in 1975 to the Los Angeles Kings for Terry Harper, Dan Maloney and a 1976 draft pick.

24th: Two of the worst coaching ledgers in Red Wing history come from 1985. Harry Neale was named head coach on this date in 1985. Neale was canned after going 8-23-4 in 35 games. The Wings replaced Neale midseason with Brad Park, the longtime defensemen from the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins who finished his playing career with the Wings. Park went 9-34-2 to finish an abysmal season. How bad was the 85-86 campaign? Steve Yzerman was a -24 for the season.

29th: Detroit acquired goalie Mike Vernon in 1994 from the Calgary Flames for defensemen Steve Chiasson. Vernon would lead Detroit to the 1997 Cup, ending a 42-year title drought, when the Red Wings swept the Phiadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals. Vernon captured the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs for 1997.

30th: Kris Draper is traded from the Winnipeg Jets to the Red Wings for $1 and future considerations in 1993. Draper scored the game-winning goal in overtime of Game Two of the 1998 Stanley Cup Finals versus the Washington Capitals and has been one of the most proficient face-off men in the past 15 years in the NHL.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries and Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries from Arcadia Publishing. Cameron has blogged about all things writing, refereeing, life & sport at this site since August 8, 2006.

Tigers, Catholic League Both Wrong

The Detroit Catholic High School League's 62-year run of playing their championship baseball games at the home of the Detroit Tigers died Wednesday amid a chaotic 90-minute swirl of conflicting statements, apologies and an offer to play on another day during Wednesday's early morning business hours.

It would appear at face value the Tigers acted callously in severing the Catholic League's arm into Comerica Park. The Tigers were wrong to make their decision in the manner they did. Four schools, several buses packed with fans, the league's staff members and eight umpires were all greatly inconvenienced.

The Tigers might not understand the long-term repercussions of their actions from Wednesday anymore than they understood the uproar that ensued over Ernie Harwell's firing or the way they treated Sparky Anderson.

This is the same organization who empowered then-team president Bo Schembechler and WJR to fire their Hall-Of-Fame play-by-play broadcaster (Harwell) in the winter of 1991. Harwell is a prince of a man regarded as one of the true gentlemen in Detroit's sporting history. The Tigers blackballed manager Sparky Anderson for refusing to manage non-union ballplayers in the spring of 1995, and Anderson returned the favor by doffing a Cincinnati Reds caps on his Hall-Of-Fame plaque in Cooperstown, New York.

On the other hand, in the big picture, are these baseball games really that big a deal? In life you're going to be disrespected by people that have little or no regard for the way that indignity is handed out. You'll be duped, walked on by people in positions of power, people with lesser morals and egos as big as all outdoors. Why sweat it? Do what you have to do and move on.

Did the Catholic League think using a limited media reach into Detroit's dailies to cry foul, which both embarrassed the Tigers over this snafu, will make it better for their student-athletes going forward? I can tell you I've learned these lessons the hard way, and emotion often is the greater of competing evils. Catholic League Director Vic Michaels, like any man in a position of leadership, is a prideful person -- no harm in that -- and I'm certain there was a healthy amount of sting that followed the events of yesterday.

However, so many metro Detroiters are losing jobs, being foreclosed upon, watching pensions disappear, discovering the bonds and common stock they own are about to be valued worthless in bankruptcy. In the big picture, not being able to play a baseball game at the big ballpark hardly seems like the biggest transgression of the day. Not fairly meted out to be sure but not a capital offense either.

However, if the league had any hope of repairing the rift, did biting back on the hand that fed it for 62 years help that cause? By embarrassing the Tigers,  there's no room for internal remorse in the team's decision or the manner it was carried out. Often times, the callous act is a bigger detriment to the aggressor than it is to the offended.

In 1967 the Detroit Lions decided it would no longer offer Tiger Stadium to the respective champions of Detroit's Catholic and Public School leagues. 42 years later, life has gone on, hasn't it? It's the Tigers' right, no matter how callous, to make this decision. They own the facility and therefore, they own the power.

Madonna University or the University of Michigan would both be fabulous facilities to host the league's title tilts, both schools would probably love to have all those potential students on campus and the price is certainly more affordable than Comerica Park.

~T.C. Cameron authored two books on the history, spirit and rivalry of high school sports in metro Detroit and officiates three football, basketball & baseball.

Rematch!

While I'm never sad to see Chicago bite the dust, and they did just that in a 2-1 overtime loss, here's a legitimate tip of the hat to the Blackhawks, who played one of the toughest elimination games I've seen in nearly 15 years before succumbing to the Detroit Red Wings tonight in Joe Louis Arena.

Gotta hand it to Chicago, the 'Hawks will be an emerging force so long as their management overcomes the potential pratfalls of the salary cap. Chicago hasn't had a viable hockey team since 1995, and tonight's loss might well be the foreshadowing of the new-look Hawks, who look like an emerging force in the new age of the salary capped-NHL.

For the Wings, it's center stage for the sixth time in 14 seasons, an opportunity to capture an amazing fifth Cup in 12 seasons and a final chance to avenge Bill Guerin, who was just 24 when he played on the '95 New Jersey Devils. Those Devils broomed the Wings in four games to capture the Cup. Guerin is now 38 and a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and more than a few Wings on that '95 team remember the humiliating defeat Guerin and the Devils handed them.

The NHL got another great Finals pairing -- let's hope the games live up to the hype.