Darren Helm has looked at parades from both sides now, and he likes what he sees.
In 2008, Helm rode down Woodward Ave. as part of the Detroit Red Wings’ most recent Stanley Cup parade. Wednesday, Helm and teammate Luke Glendening stopped by The Parade Company, operators of Detroit’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade, to help in the assembly of one of this year’s floats.
“The Stanley Cup, I don’t think the parade was as elaborate as what they do here for their big parade,” Helm said.
Everywhere you looked, floats for the parade were in different states of construction, and there were oversized heads of former Presidents of the United States and many Detroit celebrities. Helm paused to try on the oversized head of Red Wings legend Gordie Howe.
“It was fun, a lot lighter than it looks,” Helm said. “It was cool. This whole day has been pretty exciting, pretty cool, fun to be part of.”
Helm and Glendening helped to paint a float that will roll down Woodward as part of this year’s festivities.
“I was a little nervous,” Glendening said. “I didn’t want to mess it up.”
He was also in awe of his surroundings.
“It’s incredible the work that goes into it for almost a year and the donations that they receive from businesses and the support it receives from the community,” Glendening said. “For Detroit to have some excitement for the kids is an awesome thing.”
Getting up close and personal to the parade left Helm feeling nostalgic and looking forward to this year’s event. He’s hoping to bring his kids down to the parade to eye their dad’s handiwork.
“I definitely want to take them now,” Helm said. “I wish I had the opportunity to bring them down here today. They would have had a blast, being able to see everything.
On parade day, Helm can even doing a little bit of bragging as his float sails past their location.
“I can point at one of them and say I helped build that one,” Helm said. They won’t need to know what I did. But I can take some credit, I guess.”
He’ll leave the bulk of the credit to those who do this on a daily basis year after year, mostly on a volunteer basis.
“I think what they do is pretty awesome,” Helm said. “They spend a lot of time building floats for a lot of smiles and happiness for kids for one day. It’s really special what they do for that day and how hard it is and the preparation they do to build these floats.
“I’m glad I got to see what they do and have a better respect for what goes on.”
Training Camp Set The Wings released their 74-player training camp roster Wednesday, and it included both a noticeable absence and a new philosophy when the team hits the ice Friday in Traverse City, Mich.
Missing is restricted free agent forward Andreas Athanasiou, who remains without a contract. Athanasiou’s agent Darren Ferris did not respond to a text sent to him on Wednesday.
The switch sees the Wings load all of their veterans and likely NHLers on to one roster, Team Delvecchio. In past years, the veterans and incumbents were shuffled up amongst the teams to try and create more competitive balance in the scrimmages.
The complete training camp roster:
Team Delvecchio
Forwards: Justin Abdelkader, Tyler Bertuzzi, Luke Glendening, Darren Helm, Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Frans Nielsen, Gustav Nyquist, P-A Parenteau, Riley Sheahan, Ben Street, Tomas Tatar, Luke Witkowski, Henrik Zetterberg
Defensemen: Dennis Cholowski, Trevor Daley, Danny DeKeyser, Jonathan Ericsson, Mike Green, Nick Jensen, Niklas Kronwall, Xavier Ouellet, Ryan Sproul
Goaltenders: Jimmy Howard, Petr Mrazek
Team Howe
Forwards: David Booth, Colin Campbell, Corey Elkins, Turner Elson, Luke Esposito, Matt Ford, Martin Frk, Axel Holmstrom, Matt Lorito, Dylan Sadowy, Dominik Shine, Evgeny Svechnikov, Eric Tangradi, Dominic Turgeon
Defensemen: Joe Hicketts, Filip Hronek, Brian Lashoff, Pat McCarron, Dylan McIlrath, Dan Renouf, Robbie Russo, Vili Saarijarvi
Goaltenders: Jared Coreau, Matej Machovsky, Tom McCollum
Team Lindsay
Forwards: Mike Borkowski, Austen Brassard, Oliver Castleman, Connor Crisp, Zach Gallant, Brady Gilmour, Isaac Johnson, Sean Josling, Luke Kutkevicius, Zach Nastasiuk, Michael Rasmussen, Givani Smith, Lane Zablocki
Defensemen: Marcus Crawford, Simon Denis, Evan Fiala, Cole Fraser, Jordan Sambrook, Libor Sulak, Kevin Tansey, Reilly Webb
Goaltenders: Corbin Boes, Kaden Fulcher, Pat Nagle
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