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This One's from the Gutter Heart
Posted: Tuesday May 18, 1999 12:05 PM
I never allow my personal feelings to affect what I write. That's why, even though I live in Denver, home of the Colorado Avalanche, I'd never speak unfairly about the motherless Detroit Red Wings.
When it comes to class, integrity and fair play, the goon-laced Red Wings rank with any team in Roller Derby the NHL.
It's true that at times in the past the store-bought Red Wings have exhibited some criminal aggressive behavior against the Avalanche, but what else would you expect out of freaking animals the best rivalry in all of sport?
Just because referee-paying Detroit holds a 2-1 advantage through Tuesday in its second-round playoff series with Colorado, and just because on March 14 the Red Wings' Kirk Maltby willfully accidentally broke Avalanche star Valeri Kamensky's arm, and just because nine days later Detroit stole acquired one of the dirtiest most penalized players in NHL history, Ulf Samuelsson, just to intimidate the Avalanche, I don't necessarily think the Wings are anything less than hitmen gentlemen.
There is nobody Colorado fans detest respect more than Detroit's fine coach, Elmer Fudd Scotty Bowman. True, Bowman has done some unspeakable controversial things over the years in this rivalry, such as screaming profanities in the parking lot at the Avalanche's Claude Lemieux, who was walking with his wife and child at the time. But this was only because Bowman was receiving signals from hell on the steel plate in his brain cares so much.
There are also a few isolated fans in Colorado who don't like Red Wings wussy-boy star Sergei Fedorov. I, for one, think his unusual white skates recall Dick Button in Cabaret on Ice a simpler time. And, true, critics poke fun at his alleged intimate relationship with teen tennis sensation Anna Kournikova, but can he help it if Woody Allen keeps stealing all his dates? unfounded rumors start going around?
And just because Fedorov is one of many Russians on the Red Wings, that doesn't mean Detroit fans are rooting for godless Commies can't relate to their players. In fact, I think if the average Red Wings fan could actually meet one of his hockey heroes, he would do what most fans do, which is buy him a cold bowl of borscht beer.
Also, unlike many Coloradans, I think Detroit is a wonderful place to whack meet somebody and, in fact, bring charges up a family. The citizens should be under house arrest proud. I once became lost in Detroit, and one lit local citizen was more than happy to help. He said, "Go right at the second burning car and left at the corpse, and park. You can try and buy your car back later."
Some folks in Colorado poke fun at the fact that Detroit calls itself Hockeytown, even though the butt-lucky Red Wings have won only two fluke Cups in the last 44 years, whereas Montreal has won 17 in that time. But what people don't realize is that Red Wings fans eat, drink and sleep in cardboard boxes hockey.
In fact, Detroit fans, taken as a whole, might have an entire set of teeth among them are delightful zealots for their team. True, they kept pulling the fire alarm in the middle of the night at the Avalanche's hotel in 1997. Also true, one of them smeared dog feces on the door handle of Lemieux's car, but I'm sure that fan probably had some spare in her purse meant it only in good fun.
The Detroit media have pulled grade-school zany stunts in this rivalry, too. For instance, one of the city's papers ran a picture of bleeding Colorado goalie Patrick Roy under the huge headline, bloody good. The same paper printed wanted posters with Lemieux's face in the middle. That's just so bush-league friendly competition. I'm sure a number of Red Wings fans had a great time taping the posters to the walls of their prison cells dens.
All in all, the Colorado-Detroit rivalry is about mutual loathing respect. I can honestly say that if the Red Wings were to play, say, Iraq, I'd be there holding up a picture of Saddam Hussein supporting them. To me, the Red Wings represent everything that is fully prosecutable good in hockey.
In summary, even though it looks like the puppy-kicking, handicap-space-parking, Michael-Bolton-listening Red Wings will eliminate Colorado, all of us in Denver hope they grow goiters on every square inch of their faces go as far as they can go.
And take the Lions with them.
Issue date: May 17, 1999
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