SIAP - Deadspin write up on the end of an era at the Joe.
Hit me right in the feels. Love that arena and the history and joy it brought watching the Grind Line punish opposing teams.
http://deadspin.com/joe-louis-arena-was-crude-and-perfect-1794042626?ut…
Wow, deadspin is still a thing?
Then there’s the end of the Joe. Admittedly, JLA is a flawed building. It’s ugly and windowless and takes up valuable riverfront area. Its concourses are cramped and feel like a basement. Its location is fairly removed from the new attractions of the city, like gentrified Midtown or the Tigers’ and Lions’ more modern venues.
Well, if you're willing to take a little stroll up Jefferson, you aren't all that far from the main branch of the USPS in Detroit, so if you forgot to mail a bill or something - if you still mail any - there is that.
In all seriousness though, I will miss JLA too - it was pretty hideous on the outside, and its location on the river by the collision of the Lodge and Jefferson Avenue didn't make it easy to get to on game days, but the games that were played there....yeah, it is full of memories all the same.
It's an awful and outdated building, but I love it anyway.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/columnists/john-niyo/2017/04/06…
Pretty good article by John Niyo as well. 53 pretty cool pictures as well.
So many great memories
Walking up to game 5 of 2009 Stanley Cup Finals and getting tickets for $60 from a scalper
It will be missed
Winging It in Motown has a good writeup about the team going forward--like to see the full on rebuild and get back to Stanley Cup glory.
Looking forward to epic Red Wings / Maple Leaf battles over the next decade. Would love the Wings earning another cup before Babcock gets his second.
Seems odd to mention the Joe without talking about the incredible sightlines, even from the cheap seats. I will sorely miss that. A couple of other observations
-The Boards! I will miss the crazy bounces.
-The author was 7 in 2002. Dear Lord.
pfft you kids.
I still miss Olympia.
When they tore down the Olympia, my college buddies and I drove from Ann Arbor to rummage through the rubble. I took home a seat, a brick and a piece of the boards (with puck marks). Of course, something like that could never happen today.
For the past 25 years, I'd place the old, faded brick on the TV stand right next to our family room TV during the Wings' playoff runs. My kids loved it, but my wife didn't quite see the beauty in it. Unfortunately, the brick will not be making an appearance this spring.
Clicking through to that other Deadspin piece ripping on Mr. I was the worst idea I've had in a while.
Now I have someone else on my Rosenberg List ... mouthy jackasses who trash something good in life entirely for their own self-advancement. That F'er could use a good Vladinator elbow up high.
(Note: do not take this as a reason to click through ... because that's probably exactly what that loser wants)
I was a teenager in the Dead Things era. My dad's company had season tickets, and the Wings were so bad, none of the salesmen wanted them, so we went to nearly every game for years. 15 rows up, right behind the goal. It was cramped and smelled of stale beer and hockey ice, but that's what it's supposed to smell like.
I have NEVER much cared for Little Sleazer's pizza....save for at the Joe, where, for some reason, it just tasted right. We went to pretty much every home game in those years. The place was never full, and we knew they were going to get beat, but it was still the place to go, and we loved hockey. We suffered through the bad years.
When the wings started getting good, the salesmen started wanting the corporate tickets, so we didn't get to go as often, but we still got to go to some games. We got to see the rise of the Bruise Brothers (Probert and Kocur), we got to revel in the Y-line (Yzerman, Ysebaert, and Y-the-Hell is Federov out there?), we wondered who the hell Klima was leaving that drop-pass off for, and we got to grow the legend of the octopus getting thrown on the ice for the beginning of the playoff streak.
I left Michigan almost 21 years ago for a job in Alabama, and now have been in Iowa for the past 7. I haven't been to the Joe in over 2 decades.....but in my heart it will always be the home of the Wings, musty stale beer smell and all. Get off my lawn.
who owns a bar near there. His entire business is basically dependent on pre-game and pre-concert drinkers, so he'll be going out of business soon.
And that makes me smile, because he's a huge asshole.
Going to miss it.
The Wings are the only pro team I really care about and with the mediocrity of Michigan sports for most of the last 10-15 years, the Wings have provided a majority of my positive sports memories and experiences and most of those have occurred at the Joe. I got to go to the game Saturday against the Maple Leafs and while the final result wasn't what I wanted, the energy was still high in the building and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a few goosebumps/misty eyes at times. It's a horribly outdated facility but man some important and historic hockey has been played there. I'm gonna miss it.
The perfect bowl, the best standing room seats in the NHL, the amazing sightlines, the active boards...
I played 1 game there - high school JV state championship - and I will always remember how great the ice was, and the sound/bounce of a puck off the glass...hard to describe but it was so clean!
Will miss the old place, but ready to move on. Can't wait to see a game in the new rink!