Tuesday, May 13, 2008

A call to the defence of Don Cherry

Montreal Sports Journalist Pat Hickey decided to take a few shots at Don Cherry in his article today.

(start quote from hickeys article)

In recent rants on both CBC and ESPN, Cherry talked about the empty seats at Joe Louis... for game 1 of the dallas detroit series and blamed the decline in attendance on the Red Wings Style of Play.

Hickey goes on to say: Well , Don, anyone who knows anything about whats happening in Detroit knows that it is the econonomy and the next time you go on a rant, you should check your facts.
(end quote)
Well, Pat Hickey, i think you have watched too may Michael Moore movies. In every Moore movie, he spends a few minutes tearing apart his hometown of Flint Michigan, which is a suburb of Detroit. Moore hates his hometown and especially his country, and spends a lot of time tearing them apart. It is very easy to blame the economy, but one should look at the structure of sports in detroit firstly.

Detroit red wings were capable of selling out at many points in this season. So were all the other sporting teams that play in detroit. All Detroit sports teams sold over 90% of their tickets. The Red Wings problem can be attributed to the Pistons also doing very well in the playoffs and the start of the Tigers season; therefore having baseball, basketall and hockey competing for fans. It also can be attributed to the fact that the Red Wings have won the cup so many times, that it is beginning to mean less for the fans. This is a problem that every dynasty will run into, after they have fallen from their dynasty. If detroit can not sell tickets now, in the third round of the playoffs when their team is looking like the best, then how are they going to sell tickets in a few years when they slip to worst in the league.

Cherry is right that the red wings style of play is costing them a bit of attendance. But it is impossible for the Red Wings to lift themselves to the level of play they were capable of when they had Yzerman and Fedorov. Detroit is doing an excellent job of making do with what they are given.

The moral of the story is, Pat Hickey from Montreal, should do a better job of seeing the picture clearly, rather than turning to his precious facts. Hey Pat: You mess with Cherry, you mess with Hark.



3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Style of play worse? This team is smarter, tougher, and built more for the playoffs than Yzerman, Shanahan, and Federov teams were. Those teams were finesse teams, and Federove often faded in the playoffs, and many of the Shanny and Hull types were more sharp shooters that were coached up by the legend, Bowman.

    Flint, MI is no more a suburb of Detroit than Hamilton Ontario is a suburb of Toronto.

    Also, how is Detroit going to slip into the worst in the league when their recruiting and scouting has kept them in the playoffs for 19 straight years?

    The economy is awful in Michigan; it is technically a depression.

    I live in Atlanta, GA (I know Red Necks, I've become one) and every time I go see the Wings play the Thrashers, the crowd is about 1/4Wings fans, and the same goes in LA and Anaheim, just like the other night in Dallas.

    If Michigan is Red Neck then Canada is a third world country, and you're just plain ignorant.

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  3. *travelled to detroit, sorry. Detroit is the third world country, I'm sure the rest of michigan is lovely.

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