The Long Goodbye

By Mark Brown

Writing this a couple of days before Valentine’s Day, I realize that the best relationships are those that persevere through good times, bad times and uncertain times.  Yet sooner or later, all relationships come to an end.

The relationship in question is with Joe Louis Arena.

The Detroit Red Wings announced their plans for the farewell season at “The Joe.” The team will finish its run at the building in the spring of 2017 before moving a little north to the building with the working title of Detroit Events Center.  A commemorative logo has been revealed, with the dates “1979-2017” and four stars symbolizing the four Stanley Cups the Wings have won so far while playing there.  Celebrations have been scheduled remembering the Cup-winning teams as well as the college hockey, concerts and events held at the arena.  There will be giveaways and many opportunities for fans to share their memories of the arena before the final horn sounds next spring, maybe with another Stanley Cup or two?

The arena’s post-Wings fate isn’t clear, though chances are it will be gutted or torn down to make room for a possible expansion of Cobo Center or perhaps more retail or residential space.

Sports fans have special relationships with the buildings their teams play in.  I had one with Tiger Stadium as a Tigers fan and there has certainly been one with the Joe as a Wings fan.

Joe Louis Arena opened in December 1979 when the Wings, then an NHL laughingstock, moved from the venerable Olympia Stadium.  The team often played to a half-empty arena, which gave it the nickname Joe Louis Mausoleum.  When Mike and Marian Illitch bought the Wings in 1982 they immediately began sprucing it up and by the late 1980s, it was full almost every night.  My first memory of the Joe was not a hockey game (that would come much later), but the Ice Capades with Dorothy Hamill in 1980.  That was a year that also saw the building host the NHL All-Star Game and the Republican National Convention.

There were of course many electric moments at Joe Louis Arena in the 1990s and 2000s as the team won Cups in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008, and went to the Finals in 1995 and 2009.  I saw my first Wings game there in about 1994, a 5-2 victory over Vancouver.  Since then there have been games viewed from every possible vantage point.  This included a New Year’s Eve contest where “Auld Lang Syne” would play on the PA system as the crowd filed out.  I’ve sat in the lower bowl, upper bowl, standing-room only and the Comerica Legends Club and have also hung out in the downstairs Olympia Room.  My beloved Michigan Wolverines have won hockey titles in that building.

Joe Louis Arena is certainly quirky, and not perfect.  It’s difficult to get to.  Parking is a challenge.  The luxury boxes are too high above the ice.  The concourses are too narrow.  The stairs in the upper bowl are too steep.  You’re lucky if you can get up there without slipping, spilling your beer and having people laugh at your ineptitude.  But it’s still a building fans love warts and all.

It’s way too early to eulogize Joe Louis Arena, but I want to share my own favourite memory…

It was during the 1998 Stanley Cup Finals.  I was still living in Michigan and going with family and friends to frequent showings of the Wings’ away games on the arena’s JoeVision system.  When Game 4 of the Finals was being played in Washington, DC against the Capitals, the Joe was a packed, crazed house.  The tension rose as the game wore on until late in the third period when the Wings scored their fourth goal of the game.  By then it was a given the Wings would repeat as Cup champions.  Security and arena officials moved to the floor of the arena, expecting to see a wild celebration.  When the final horn blew, 20 thousand people went totally berserk as lights flashed and confetti rained from the rafters.  People flung confetti, napkins, toilet paper and anything else they could get their hands on.  The wild yet orderly crowd then moved outside, where horns blared through the night, strangers high-fived each other and newsboys sold commemorative front pages of the Free Press and News.

And so, the long goodbye has begun.  But it’s going to be a great ride.