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Without question, Mike Ilitch saved the Red Wings - by Bob Duff |
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Ek's Note: The hockey world and the sports world lost another pioneer yesterday...Mike Ilitch, owner of the Red Wings and Tigers, passed away. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and of course the entire Red Wings family. It was just a year ago I watched first hand how a loss of an icon like Ed Snider affected the entire Flyers family. It runs deep. We are so lucky here at hockeybuzz to have the great Red Wings writer Bob Duff. I have moved his piece to my blog here today...
In this season of discontent for the Detroit Red Wings, it’s easy to forget how bad it used to be.
When Mike and Marian Ilitch purchased the Red Wings from Bruce Norris in 1982, the Wings were a laughingstock of a franchise, deeply embedded in the Dead Wings era that saw the franchise win three playoff games between 1967-83.
Not three playoff series - three playoff games.
Yes, they were that bad. And those were in the days when almost every team made the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The arrival of Mike Ilitch, who died Friday at the age of 87, changed all that. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened.
He brought in a proven hockey man in Jimmy Devellano, who took charge of the on-ice operation and began the long rebuilding process that eventually turned the Red Wings franchise into the envy of the NHL.
“He just developed everything the right way in Detroit,” said Scotty Bowman, who coached the Wings to Stanley Cup triumphs in 1996-97, 1997-98 and 2001-02. “Before he owned the Red Wings he was involved in Little Caesars youth hockey program. He had a good vision.
“He wanted to get a winning team, and he spent a lot of money to do it. It didn’t bother him. He left no stone unturned.”
While Devellano, his successor Ken Holland and the scouts assembled the nucleus of those great Detroit teams from the draft, adding the likes of Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Slava Kozlov, Henrik Zetterberg, Niklas Kronwall and Pavel Datsyuk via this method, whatever piece of the puzzle was missing that might put the team over the top, Ilitch was always willing to pay the price needed to make it happen.
“He was a phone call away, you ran everything by him,” Bowman said. “I don’t think he ever refused. He probably never refused anything that people that worked for him wanted to do.
“As long as you explained it to him, it was always the same answer – is this going to help us win?”
While he was very involved owner in some ways, Ilitch, who later added ownership of the Detroit Tigers in the early 1990s, was never about being the story, like say football’s Jerry Jones or baseball’s George Steinbrenner. He preferred to blend into the background for the most part when it came to public consumption.
“Working for him, I’m sure if you were playing for him it was the same thing … he was active but he never interfered,” Bowman said. “He maybe came into the locker room a couple times a year, maybe before the playoffs.”
Bowman also recalled the personal touch of Ilitch as it related to his son Stan, today the GM of the Chicago Blackhawks.
“The way he treated you, it was like family,” Bowman explained. “If you needed to talk about anything he was always available and that’s what I felt was the difference. He wasn’t so much a hands-on owner as he was a family man.
“My biggest memory was when (the Wings) won the Cup in 2008 and my son Stan got Hodgkin’s (disease) in Chicago. He was assistant GM at the time. Jimmy Devellano phoned me and said Chicago (GM) Dale Tallon had called to ask permission to speak with me, to join them as a senior consultant.
“I wasn’t sure about everything. My son was going through treatment but I phoned Mr. Ilitch to talk about it, and he said … you don’t have to worry about it. What happened was when my son got sick, he said it’s a no-brainer, I really want you to stay but I don’t think you have any decision. You must go and help him.
“That was the way I left it. I never left with any ill feelings. He convinced me that was the right thing to do. I’ll always remember that.”
Follow me on Twitter @asktheduffer
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