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February 21, 2020

UP Pond Hockey tournament

reinforces our love for the game

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

ST. IGNACE, Michigan – They came from all around the Midwest, from all across Canada and – as beer-league hockey goes – from outposts as remote as Florida, Texas and California. More than 1,000 strong they were, seven-man (and women) teams for a mammoth four-on-four pond hockey tournament on the nearly 30 Zamboni-ed rinks on the northern banks of Lake Huron.

I was invited by the event’s organizers in this enchanting Upper Peninsula community to spend a few days mixing with the skaters, their families and the legion of fans who come less for the games and beer and more for the camaraderie.

I’ve been around this sport a lot over the last 35 years, covering games on three continents, and I left more in love with it than I’d ever imagined. That struck me like a thunderbolt as I watched skaters come off the ice after their games, headed for the warming tent and a cold Labatt’s – the Canadian brewery that sponsored the event.

What occurred to me on the first couple of days when the windchill hovered around zero or below was that I couldn’t tell the winners from the losers. Everybody, and I mean every single competitor, left the ice beaming. For three memorable days, St. Ignace led the planet in rosie-cheeked, nose-running smiles.

And it hit me: Hockey just makes you happy.

Whether they play it, or their kids play it, or they follow the game at any level from Mini Mite to the National Hockey League, they all behave as though they share a secret that the rest of the world will never understand or appreciate – that ice hockey is the best damned sport on Earth. Especially when it’s played outdoors on a pond, whether it’s something that dad does every winter with a hose in the backyard, or on the black ice of a frozen lake, makeshift rinks surrounded by snowbanks, with a small target at either end serving as the goal.

Behind a table covered with books in the warming tent, I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with many of the skaters, their family members and fans.

A couple of guys came up curious about the book, wondering what it was about. I was nonplussed.

“How can you be here in Michigan playing in this tournament and not know anything about The Russian Five?” I asked.

“Well, we’re from Kentucky,” one of them said. That explained it. I asked about their background playing the game.

“We just love it,” the guy said. “We’re not very good at it, but we’re good at beer. And bourbon.”

Turns out there were three teams from Kentucky in this tournament. One of them played in a championship game on Sunday. Go figure.

On Saturday afternoon, a young couple from Oakland County approached and they started talking about how much they loved the story after seeing the documentary. Now they wanted their own copy of the book. I asked them how they wanted me to inscribe it.

“Make it out to Kendall,” he said.

“Oh sure, great,” I said. “Does Kendall play hockey?”

“No,” he said. “But she will. She hasn’t been born yet, but she’ll be here in about a month.”

I immediately look at the man’s wife, confused.

“Oh no, not me,” she said. “We’re adopting her.”

I began to write, “For Kendall. . .”

And I heard him whisper to his wife: “This will be her first book.”

That’s when I lost it.

But at least I had the presence of mind to ask them if they would pose for a photo with me.

Then I took a little break. Went out into the cold, fighting a stiff wind and snow that was blowing sideways to watch pond hockey on rinks as far as the eye could roam.

Standing there alone, admonishing myself for not wearing a hat, I found myself smiling as I dabbed a little more moisture from my eye.

Yes, I confessed, hockey makes me happy.

-30-

FEBRUARY 7TH, 2020

Gallant-Yzerman reunion is anybody’s

guess – because one guy isn’t talking

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

DETROIT – Kirk Maltby saw the news first on his phone, and all he could do was hold it up for everyone else to see.

“What’s going on?” someone asked the former Detroit Red Wings’ Grind Liner, now a scout for the beleaguered hockey club.

“Gerard Gallant is out in Vegas. They just fired him,” Maltby announced to the group of team scouts and executives, meeting well in advance of the looming trade deadline.

“What the (expletive)! That cannot be true,” an angry Jim Devellano shouted. The team’s senior vice president – the first person Mike and Marion Ilitch hired when they bought the team in 1982, was visibly upset.

The guy running the meeting, general manager Steve Yzerman, had little reaction. Which shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has spent any time around him. To say he holds his cards close to his vest is a colossal understatement. But he did offer up the question suddenly on everyone’s mind:

“How long do you think it will take for the rumors to get started that he’s coming here?”

I’m guessing the rumor mill already was in high gear before Yzerman finished his sentence. And the question still lingers.

Only one man knows the answer, of course; two if Steve Yzerman has already reached out to Gallant and asked him to hold tight until the off-season before doing anything – if Gallant is even remotely interested in the Detroit gig. And the sorry state of this team could well be a factor for the NHL Coach of the Year winner just two years ago.

To many, another homecoming of a prominent former Red Wings star is a no-brainer. But Yzerman isn’t talking. He isn’t even talking questions.

In fact, Steve Yzerman has become a kind of ghost since he returned to Detroit last spring to accept the gig for which we all thought he was destined. He hasn’t spoken to the beat reporters of the two Detroit newspapers that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars traveling around the continent to cover the Red Wings since last summer.

Zero availability. Zero accountability from the man making all the decisions that matter with this hockey club. Rather mind-boggling, to be honest, not to speak to the GM at least several times a

week during the course of a 10-month hockey season – which starts in September, ends in June, and dribbles into July with some serious newsworthy events.

In fact, Yzerman’s only public statements about the team, its historically bad season – and any reasons for optimism among the dwindling fan base (season-ticketholder numbers are approaching historic lows as well) came during an in-house interview with radio play-by-play man Ken Kal. In a well-choreographed sit-down, Kal served up a number of softball questions that Yzerman naturally knocked out of the park.

The Wings released the video on its website. There were no headlines; the interview might have fulfilled what the club recognizes as a PR obligation, but it provided precious little news.

This snub of local media that has been so generous with their coverage over the years is disgraceful, and already it is beginning to tarnish the legacy of a guy generations of fans know lovingly as “The Captain.”

This is a far, far different Steve Yzerman than the guy I covered since before then-coach Jacques Demers pinned the “C” on his Red Wings’ sweater. But those who remained to cover the team and the remainder of Yzerman’s career after I left say they saw this coming.

In his final days as captain, they say, Yzerman was rarely available to the media even after games, preferring instead to let teammates do the explaining after wins and losses. That’s in stark contrast to what we saw in the men who followed. Nick Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg were there after nearly every game, present and accountable, staying amid the scrum of notebooks, microphones and cameras until the last question.

Which is what you need to do in times like these, when empty seats outnumber fans at the Pizz-Arena. Fans need reasons to be excited; they want explanations when things go sideways and they’re frustrated. Reporters covering the team have the questions and capabilities through various information streams to get fans the information they might need to keep from jumping off the bandwagon.

This isn’t the late 1990s, when The Captain was kicking up a rooster tail on his wave runner on Lake St. Clair with the Stanley Cup riding shotgun. The Detroit Red Wings are dead last, by a country mile, among the NHL’s 31 teams. They need the media far more than Steve Yzerman and Little Caesars’ CEO Chris Ilitch want to acknowledge.

Bringing Gerard Gallant – Yzerman’s pal and linemate for several seasons on those joyful teams of the late 1980s – won’t change a lot on the ice, at least immediately. It’s more of a PR move similar to Yzerman’s homecoming. Hell, brining Scotty Bowman back to coach this team wouldn’t change much. It’s not Jeff Blashill’s fault; he doesn’t have enough actual NHL players to compete from night to night.

The prevailing wisdom – and again we have no idea because Yzerman refuses to talk – is that the Wings won’t make a coaching change until the off-season. Which isn’t the worst thing in the world. Then Yzerman can say he gave Blashill a shot, and can name his own coach.

But this much we do know: Gallant has proven NHL coaching chops. His team’s play fast and hard, with a chip on their shoulders – just the way he played in Detroit. Like Bowman, Gallant has a knack for getting the most out of every player in his lineup, and a little extra. They find ways to win, while in Detroit in the final years under Mike Babcock and through most of Blashill’s five seasons, they find ways to disappoint.

Those days have to end. Soon.

-30-

FEBRUARY 5TH, 2020

Dantonio’s departure surprising? Not

really. Welcome? Surely. It was time

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

Better late than never, Mark Dantonio called it a career.

Two months after vowing he had no intention of quitting, and three weeks after collecting a $4.3 million “rollover” bonus, the winningest coach in Michigan State football history announced his retirement Tuesday.

It was time.

But more than surprising – many of us expected this to happen after a disappointing 6-6 finish to the regular season, and almost certainly after a win over Wake Forest in the Pinstripe Bowl – the timing of the announcement was curious.

“I’m not going anywhere. That’s not how I do things,” Dantonio said defiantly when asked questions about his plans ahead of bowl season and afterward. His head held high, his chin jutting forward, he looked his interrogator straight in the eye. And we believed him.

He had to know better even then. He had to know he wanted out, needed out before being pushed out by an administration and fanbase grateful for the heights he took MSU yet tired of the horrific mediocrity of the past three seasons when it seemed clear to everyone but Mark Dantonio that his time in East Lansing had run its course.

Thanks for the memories coach, the big wins over Ohio State, the many wins over archrival Michigan, the Big Ten titles, Rose Bowl victory in 2014 and a trip to the College Football Playoff in 2015. Since then, though?

A 27-24 record and more humiliating losses than memorable victories. Though he did manage to surpass the legendary Duffy Dougherty for most wins in franchise history, the highlight of the dismal season just concluded.

So long, Coach. There’s a lovely parting gift for you on the way out. Don’t let the door. . .

Mark Dantonio coached his final game at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 27, 2019, a 27-21 win over the Demon Deacons, like MSU a university known more for its basketball program. When it ended, he refused to concede that he was even considering retirement.

On Jan. 15, he collected his bonus, a payment MSU said was “in recognition of his long service to the University.”

Now, just 20 days later – and coincidentally one day ahead of National Signing Day for recruits, Dantonio announced he was leaving.

“This job has always been a 24/7, 365 day-a-year position,” Dantonio announced on his Twitter feed. “There is no down time and it is filled with the demands and challenges of managing games, players, coaches, recruits, donors, staff, media, an enthusiastic fan base and competition at the very highest level. I will miss it all but feel the sacrifices that I have made away from my family must now become my priority at this time in my life.”

Dantonio was paid an annual salary of $2,321,092, plus a $1 million annual payment annually for TV and media appearances. He also received $100,000 a year from the school's apparel sponsor, in this case Nike, and got $700,000 in a retention bonus. That’s a nifty $4.4 million.

Now the university must go out, at this very odd time, and find a successor to Dantonio. Smart money was on Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell. But don’t count out Dantonio’s old sidekick, Pat Narduzzi, who left the Spartans after their best-ever football seasons to take the head job at Pittsburgh with middling success. Fickell has built a Top 25 program in short order at Cincy, and he has the recruiting chops MSU desperately needs to regain its stature in the Big Ten.

But it will take a bushel of bucks to get him. We’re about to find out how serious this university is about competing at the national level – where Dantonio had it for a few wonderful years.

Meantime, and true to his word, sort of, Mark Dantonio is going nowhere. He said he plans to stay with the university’s athletic department “in a role involving special projects, especially transitioning our players, both current and incoming, to their next challenges.”

His salary to be: $1 million.

Plus free football tickets.

I think that’s what some people call “failing successfully.”

Well done, coach. (And thanks for the memories.)

-30-

JANUARY 23RD, 2020

Pistons give us hope

by changing on the fly

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

Their $34 million superstar has played just 18 of 44 games, most of them on one leg, before succumbing to surgery that likely will put him on the shelf for the remainder of the season. Their starting point guard played just two games before a back injury made him unavailable. Their best shooter has missed 16 games and could be out another month with two bad knees.

Other than that, General Custer, how’d your meeting with the Indians go?

A Detroit Pistons’ season that began with such high hopes – at least relatively speaking for this team, like making the playoffs a second straight year and actually winning a game for the first time in 12 mind-numbingly frustrating years – deteriorated rapidly.

As a result, after a relatively easy first-half schedule, they’re again straddling that familiar line between sneaking into the playoffs to be first-round fodder against an Eastern Conference power like Milwaukee and languishing among the league’s bottom feeders. In other words, they’re winning just enough to take them out of the running for potential difference-making star in the NBA draft.

Two straight impressive victories in Boston and Atlanta were followed by an inexplicable 106-100 MLK Day loss to the woeful Washington Wizards -- preventing Detroit from achieving its first three-game win streak of the season. Then came another heartening win, 127-106, over the visiting Sacramento Kings. Heartening because Reggie Jackson finally returned with a strong outing (22 points in 19 minutes) and another great effort from their young nucleus – and we’ll get to those guys in a minute.

That left the Pistons at 17-29, giving the dwindling diehards among us a ray of hope as the they pulled to within 2 ½ games of eighth-place Brooklyn in the East. That also puts them 20th in a 30-team league, which would give them the 10th overall draft pick. Not exactly the place to get one of those game-changers they so desperately need.

So to tank or not to tank? Easy question, difficult to answer. Players don’t tank; they don’t care a lick about draft picks. Nor do coaches, who live and die by their won-loss records. Front offices tank, either wittingly or unwittingly. For too long now – Exhibit A is the entire the Stan Van Gundy era – the Pistons have been taking without even trying.

Now it’s time to give their team a little nudge. They need to borrow a page from the Red Wings, their co-tenants at the Pizz-Arena, and the Tigers, and trade their way downward in the standings ahead of the NBA’s Feb. 6 deadline.

Starting with Derrick Rose, playing like an All-Star again, reaching the 20-point mark in 10 straight games. Surely a playoff-bound team in need of a catalyst for its second unit would cough up something reasonable in the way of a younger prospect or a draft pick. Especially since Rose wouldn’t be a rental; he’s making a reasonable $7.3 million this season, and his contract extends to next season for $7.8 million.

Those things considered, Rose may be a more valuable trade chip than Andre Drummond, the best rebounder in the NBA who turns in a double-double on an almost nightly basis. But Drummond, who didn’t play in Wednesday’s win over the Kings, is on an expiring contract.

Teams that have been sniffing around on him, like Atlanta and the New York Knicks, have pulled back. Others remain interested, and it behooves the Pistons to get something – anything – for Drummond rather than let him turn his nose up at his $28.8 option year to test the free-agent market.

So while it appears the Pistons might be a very dark horse candidate to make the playoffs, let’s make one thing clear: Appearances can be deceiving, and rarely has that been truer than with this team.

Whether they want to acknowledge it publicly or not, the Detroit Pistons have been in rebuild mode for months now. It’s why they took every conceivable precaution with Griffin, and shut down Griffin when they did. It’s why they’re being so careful now with Kennard. It’s why they’re hoping Jackson, in the eight games remaining before the deadline, might showcase enough to make himself a remotely decent trade chip. (OK, that’s a longshot considering he’s on an expiring contract at $18 million this season.)

And it’s why they’re playing the hell out of the kids – who are giving us hope that there is light at the end of this dark tunnel, and it’s not an oncoming train.

Wednesday was a prime example. No Griffin, no Drummond, no Kennard or Bruce Brown. No problem.

Just consider Christian Wood, 24 – the last guy to make the team out of training camp: 23 points in 25 minutes. And Svi Mykhailiuk, 22, 13 points in 29 minutes. And rookie Seku Doumbouya, the youngest player in the league at 19 who played so well in his first 10 games that he’s starting to get some extra attention from defenses: seven rebounds and four points in 21 minutes.

Add Kennard and Brown, both 23, to that group, mix in a healthy Blake Griffin when he returns next season. Now throw in whatever pieces will be added in what could be a transformational draft, and how can you not be optimistic about the future?

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Give it some thought. It might help keep you sane as well as you follow these Pistons.

-30-

January 26th, 2020

Even over an 8-day break, Red

Wings give us reason to agonize

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

To anyone easily consoled by the notion that the Red Wings will at least have a reasonable shot at a game-changing prospect at the top of the NHL Entry Draft: Be prepared to have your heart ripped out of your rib cage.

Merely consider the math – and the numbers do not lie: When – not if but when – the Wings finish 31st in the 31-league NHL, Detroit will have just an 18.5 percent chance of getting the first selection by winning the Entry Draft Lottery, which includes all 15 teams that fail to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs. They’ll have a 16.5 percent shot at the second overall pick and a 14.4 percent chance to get the third pick.

Add those numbers up, and you’ll find that Detroit owns a 49.4 percent chance at a top-three ick. The good news, if you’re easily humored by silver linings: Teams can fall no further than three spots. So that means they have a 50.6 percent chance at the fourth overall pick – which is nearly three times more likely than getting the No. 1 pick and the opportunity to select the lone transformational player in this draft, winger Alexis Lafreniere.

But given Detroit’s lousy luck in their limited history in this beefsteak bingo, it’s really, really hard to be optimistic.

The NHL Draft Lottery has been around since 1995, when the Wings were in the early days of their 25-year streak of making the playoffs. They weren’t a participant until 2017, when the streak ended, when they finished seventh from the bottom of the standings. They had a 6.5 percent shot at the No. 1 overall pick, and they odds of them landing in the top three were about 21 percent.

Dream on. The Wings were bumped down two spots, selected ninth overall and took 6-foot-5 center Mike Rasmussen, who looks like he could be a fixture in Detroit anchoring a third line and posting up in the slot during the power play. A piece to the foundation – maybe. But hardly transformational for the franchise.

Two years ago, the Wings finished fifth from the bottom, slipped a spot and selected Filip Zadina, at the time widely believed to be the best pure goal-scorer in the litter. The jury is still out on that, but for a kid who just turned 20, he’s proving he can compete at the NHL level – at least in the offensive zone. That two-goal effort last Wednesday night in Minnesota will do wonders for his confidence.

Last season, the Wings finished fourth from the bottom, so they had a 9.5 percent shot at the No. 1 overall pick (Jack Hughes) and a 28.9 percent chance at a top-three pick. But no. Longshot

teams moved way up, knocking Detroit down two spots to sixth overall, where they selected German defenseman Moritz Seider.

The point: Expect the worst and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself by clicking on Tankathon.com and run through a couple of dozen draws. See how often the longshots move up, knocking the neediest teams at the bottom of the standings farther away from the kinds of players they really need. See for yourself how few times the Red Wings actually keep their No. 1 slot in the draft.

In the interest of those who don’t have the time or inclination, or don’t need another reason to be demoralized, I spent a few moments and clicked the Simulated Lottery button repeatedly. And I wanted to scream.

Out of 300 attempts, Detroit claimed the No. 1 pick just 54 times – 18 percent, slightly below the actual odds. They got the No. 2 pick 51 times and the No. 3 pick 36 times, giving them a top-3 pick 47 percent of the time, fairly below the actual odds. The Wings wound up with the fourth pick a whopping 159 times, 53 percent.

Now get this: In those 300 spins of the simulator, teams moved up five or more slots into the top 4 positions a whopping 318 times. And it’s outright remarkable how often Chicago, the New York Rangers and Buffalo are among those teams moving way up.

On one spin, each of those teams moved up eight spots – Chicago to No. 3, the Rangers to No. 2, and Buffalo to No. 1. They, of course, bumped Detroit to No. 4. On another spin, the Rangers moved seven spots up to No. 3, Winnipeg jumped 10 spots to No. 2, and Buffalo was up eight to No. 1. Which of course pushed the Wings back to No. 4.

Last year, New Jersey had the third best odds at getting the top pick and won the lottery, selecting Hughes. It was No. 12 Chicago and the No. 6 Rangers moving into the top 3 – and screwing the Wings.

This is wrong, and the NHL should be mindful about taking another look at the percentages and consider increasing them for the bottom 3-4 teams at the expense of the dozen or so teams above them, most of whom were fighting for playoff spots heading into the final few weeks of the season.

I gotta admit, this lottery deal was a whole lot more fun and interesting when Red Wings didn’t have to worry about it.

JANUARY 23RD, 2020

Pistons give us hope

by changing on the fly

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

Their $34 million superstar has played just 18 of 44 games, most of them on one leg, before succumbing to surgery that likely will put him on the shelf for the remainder of the season. Their starting point guard played just two games before a back injury made him unavailable. Their best shooter has missed 16 games and could be out another month with two bad knees.

Other than that, General Custer, how’d your meeting with the Indians go?

A Detroit Pistons’ season that began with such high hopes – at least relatively speaking for this team, like making the playoffs a second straight year and actually winning a game for the first time in 12 mind-numbingly frustrating years – deteriorated rapidly.

As a result, after a relatively easy first-half schedule, they’re again straddling that familiar line between sneaking into the playoffs to be first-round fodder against an Eastern Conference power like Milwaukee and languishing among the league’s bottom feeders. In other words, they’re winning just enough to take them out of the running for potential difference-making star in the NBA draft.

Two straight impressive victories in Boston and Atlanta were followed by an inexplicable 106-100 MLK Day loss to the woeful Washington Wizards -- preventing Detroit from achieving its first three-game win streak of the season. Then came another heartening win, 127-106, over the visiting Sacramento Kings. Heartening because Reggie Jackson finally returned with a strong outing (22 points in 19 minutes) and another great effort from their young nucleus – and we’ll get to those guys in a minute.

That left the Pistons at 17-29, giving the dwindling diehards among us a ray of hope as the they pulled to within 2 ½ games of eighth-place Brooklyn in the East. That also puts them 20th in a 30-team league, which would give them the 10th overall draft pick. Not exactly the place to get one of those game-changers they so desperately need.

So to tank or not to tank? Easy question, difficult to answer. Players don’t tank; they don’t care a lick about draft picks. Nor do coaches, who live and die by their won-loss records. Front offices tank, either wittingly or unwittingly. For too long now – Exhibit A is the entire the Stan Van Gundy era – the Pistons have been taking without even trying.

Now it’s time to give their team a little nudge. They need to borrow a page from the Red Wings, their co-tenants at the Pizz-Arena, and the Tigers, and trade their way downward in the standings ahead of the NBA’s Feb. 6 deadline.

Starting with Derrick Rose, playing like an All-Star again, reaching the 20-point mark in 10 straight games. Surely a playoff-bound team in need of a catalyst for its second unit would cough up something reasonable in the way of a younger prospect or a draft pick. Especially since Rose wouldn’t be a rental; he’s making a reasonable $7.3 million this season, and his contract extends to next season for $7.8 million.

Those things considered, Rose may be a more valuable trade chip than Andre Drummond, the best rebounder in the NBA who turns in a double-double on an almost nightly basis. But Drummond, who didn’t play in Wednesday’s win over the Kings, is on an expiring contract.

Teams that have been sniffing around on him, like Atlanta and the New York Knicks, have pulled back. Others remain interested, and it behooves the Pistons to get something – anything – for Drummond rather than let him turn his nose up at his $28.8 option year to test the free-agent market.

So while it appears the Pistons might be a very dark horse candidate to make the playoffs, let’s make one thing clear: Appearances can be deceiving, and rarely has that been truer than with this team.

Whether they want to acknowledge it publicly or not, the Detroit Pistons have been in rebuild mode for months now. It’s why they took every conceivable precaution with Griffin, and shut down Griffin when they did. It’s why they’re being so careful now with Kennard. It’s why they’re hoping Jackson, in the eight games remaining before the deadline, might showcase enough to make himself a remotely decent trade chip. (OK, that’s a longshot considering he’s on an expiring contract at $18 million this season.)

And it’s why they’re playing the hell out of the kids – who are giving us hope that there is light at the end of this dark tunnel, and it’s not an oncoming train.

Wednesday was a prime example. No Griffin, no Drummond, no Kennard or Bruce Brown. No problem.

Just consider Christian Wood, 24 – the last guy to make the team out of training camp: 23 points in 25 minutes. And Svi Mykhailiuk, 22, 13 points in 29 minutes. And rookie Seku Doumbouya, the youngest player in the league at 19 who played so well in his first 10 games that he’s starting to get some extra attention from defenses: seven rebounds and four points in 21 minutes.

Add Kennard and Brown, both 23, to that group, mix in a healthy Blake Griffin when he returns next season. Now throw in whatever pieces will be added in what could be a transformational draft, and how can you not be optimistic about the future?

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Give it some thought. It might help keep you sane as well as you follow these Pistons.

-30-

JANUARY 17TH, 2020

Dear Baseball: I’ve had enough. We’re

done. Our differences are irreconcilable

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

So what about the real cheaters, the batters on the field taking advantage of certain technologies to learn the pitcher’s offering before he throws it?

From zooming centerfield TV cameras peeking between the catcher’s shin guards as his fingers flash the signs to low-level gestures like banging trashcan lids and high-level signals that, allegedly, were delivered by a buzzer worn under the uniform, batters in Houston in 2017 and Boston in 2018 cheated all the way to World Series titles.

Champions my ass.

Charlatans, more like it. Swindlers. Frauds.

What about them?

The great sign-stealing scandal has cost three managers their jobs in 72 hours. Houston’s general manager was also fired. Major League Baseball also fined the Astros $5 million and took away several draft picks. The players? Not so much a slap on the wrist. Yet.

And speaking of those rogues, former Tigers ace Justin Verlander certainly had a lot to say about sign-stealing – until he won a World Series ring. So far, not a peep from him. I hope his World Series ring turns green on his finger, a tarnished symbol of a tainted title.

Meantime, the Los Angeles City Council was planning a vote to appeal to Major League Baseball to vacate the World Series titles of Houston and Boston and award the Series victories to the Dodgers, who lost both years to those teams. Not likely MLB would do that, but one can hope, eh?

What the hell is happening to this game we fell in love with as kids and followed so intensely into adulthood?

From a Hall-of-Fame bound player-turned-manager Pete Rose admitting to gambling on games, to a years-long steroid scandal that destroyed for all time some of the most cherished home-run records, to juiced baseballs flying out of parks at a rate that would shame city-rec slow-pitch softball games, to launch angles that led to gaudy strikeout rates, to defensive shifts and “opening pitchers,” the game, at least at the MLB level, has lost all credibility to me.

Sorry, I prefer a more civil time (before the designated hitter rule, actually), when base-stealing, bunting, the hit-and-run and stealing signs the old-fashioned way, by paying attention to

managers, base coaches and yes, the catcher’s fingers by a runner on second base – not by hiring NSA code-breakers and hackers and guys to gong trash cans.

Trust me, with the Tigers set to open spring training in Lakeland, Florida, in 26 days, when pitchers and catchers report, I’d much prefer to be talking right now about whether a svelte Miguel Cabrera can recover his powerful swing after an off-season of serious conditioning. I’d rather debate about what they should do with their ace lefthander, Matt Boyd: trade him now, trade him at the deadline, or hold on to him as the cornerstone of the rotation if they ever get this thing turned around.

I’d rather talk about adding another important piece through free-agency – like a corner outfielder with some pop – and whether Yasiel Puig is really a good fit for a team that seems to have a void in established leadership in the clubhouse these days.

But no, instead we’re distracted by conspiracy theories, like why Jose Altuve implored his teammates to rip off his jersey after he hit a walk-off home run, something that has become a weird tradition in today’s game. Why didn’t he want his shirt off just then? Because he was shy, as he says? So why did he run into the dugout at that moment and come right back out to celebrate with his team – wearing a different shirt?

Discuss.

I’m out. I’ve had it.

-30-

January 15th, 2020

Stunning coaching change in Vegas gives

Wings GM Yzerman something to ponder

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

Indulge me, please, as I try to type the following sentence without throwing up in my mouth again: Shockingly, inexplicably, the Las Vegas Golden Knights have fired their coach, Gerard Gallant.

Seriously.

In a move that makes not one ounce of sense, the Knights fired the guy who led a ragamuffin group of expansion-team castoffs to the Stanley Cup playoffs in the first two years of the franchise’s existence. Against infinitesimal odds, he took his team to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season. That’s unheard of in a league where expansion teams have been more prone to struggle to get to double-digit wins and 30 points in the standings, finish last and have aa good shot at acquiring another building block for the future in the entry draft.

But that’s not how it was in suddenly hockey-crazed Las Vegas, where the bar clearly is set awfully high. Gallant’s Knights were five games over .500 with 54 points, tying them with Winnipeg for the second wildcard spot in the Western Conference. There was little doubt throughout the league – at least outside of Vegas – that they would make the playoffs and, given the way Gallant’s teams play when it matters, be primed for another good run in the tournament.

Even more bizarrely, the Knights replaced Gallant with Peter DeBoer, fired just a few weeks ago by the woefully underachieving San Jose Sharks.

All Gerard Gallant does behind the bench is win, often by inspiring players with limited skillsets to perform better than even they thought they could. His teams played like he did: fast and hard, with a nasty edge. He’s a guy you wanted on your team. On your wing.

Just ask Steve Yzerman.

Which brings me to pleasant, however remote, possibility of having a kind of dream team – at least one that I’ve imagined since Yzerman joined the front office in Detroit after retiring as a player, and Gallant started coaching. Could they find success the way they did on the ice in the 1980s, whey the “Dead Wings” came to life and emerged as an NHL power they would remain for more than 25 years.

Now don’t get me wrong here; I’m not advocating the firing of Jeff Blashill – a guy I’ve defended for most of his five years in Detroit. He was dealt a very bad hand, and the Wings’ brass, to their immense credit, knew that all along.

But truth be told, and I’m betting Blashill would be among the first to acknowledge that his future as head coach of the Wings is uncertain, at best. No one believes he’s the man to lead this team out of the years-long abyss of a ground-up rebuild.

Yzerman was widely expected to stay the course with Blashill at least until the season ended, then decide which direction to go in with a head coach. At least until Wednesday, when his good friend Gallant suddenly became a free agent. It just seems inevitable that they’d be working together again one day.

On the day Jacques Demers pinned the captain’s “C” on Yzerman in the fall of 1986, he also pinned an “A,” for alternate captain, on Gallant’s sweater. From that moment, the two were virtually joined at the hip. For much of the next six-plus seasons, Gallant patrolled Yzerman’s left wing. And though just 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds of pure malice on the ice, Gallant was quick to drop the glove and fight anyone who so much as looked at his captain cross-eyed.

Frequently, Bob Probert, whose combination of skill and fighting acumen is unmatched in the history of the game, was on Yzerman’s right wing. On those nights, Steve Yzerman was the safest hockey player on the planet, and what he could do with the puck at the end of his stick brought us out of our seats.

As appealing – to me at least – as the thought is of reuniting Yzerman and Gallant in the Red Wings hierarchy, I’m realistic enough to know it’s probably a pipe dream.

To be sure, Yzerman will give it some thought. He may even have a serious conversation with Gallant about it. But word around the league is that the first-year Detroit GM has his eye on another candidate: Lane Lambert, an associate coach with the New York Islanders.

Lambert, coincidentally, represents another potential reunion of former Wings players. Yzerman was Detroit’s first draft pick of the Mike Ilitch era in 1983. Lambert was the second pick, 25th overall. He and Yzerman were roommates for a few years, until Lambert was traded to the New York Rangers in the deal that brought goaltender Glen Hanlon to Detroit.

For the record, the Red Wings continued that remarkable draft year by selecting Probert in the third round, Petr Klima and Joe Kocur in the fifth round, and Stu Grimson in the 10th round – one of the greatest drafts in NHL history, exceeded only by Detroit’s 1989 draft in which they selected Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov and Vladimir Konstantinov.

But I digress. Lambert now is an understudy to Barry Trotz, arguably the NHL’s best coach these days. After winning the Stanley Cup with Washington a few years ago, Trotz moved to the Islanders and turned a team that had one of the highest goals-against averages into the best defensive team in the NHL.

If Lambert can bring some of that to Detroit, it would go a long way toward turning this long-suffering franchise around. But I’m still partial to the dynamic, edgy and often belligerent brand of hockey that drives Gallant’s teams to succeed.

After that 8-2 embarrassment in New York on Tuesday night, maybe it’s time to try someone new sooner, rather than later. While he’s still available.

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JANUARY 8TH, 2020

Hail and farewell to a giant among

Spartans; George Perles dead at 85

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

From the moment the doctor slapped him on the ass as a newborn until the very end, George Perles carried a giant chip on his shoulder. About the size of a football, actually.

Cantankerous, obdurate and as uncompromising as the streets that raised him in a city he genuinely personified, Perles seemed everything you could ask for in a football coach. Especially after three years of laughable Michigan State Spartan football under the kindly, but profoundly overmatched Muddy Waters.

Polarizing? Unquestionably. Outspoken? As an athlete, a coach, and later as a rock-ribbed politician of Democratic persuasion? Absolutely. And unapologetic, too.

He made Michigan State his home for 65 of his 85 years, until his death Tuesday night.

In the end, for most Michigan State fans, he was like a favorite uncle – life-loving, rotund, genial, soft- and kind-hearted. And still prone to speaking his mind, as he was wont to do during a 12-year run as a Michigan State following his election in 2006 until his resignation in November 2018, when Parkinson’s disease claimed him.

But I will forever remember him as the man who reversed the Spartans’ football fortunes after 10 mostly agonizing seasons since his former coach, Duffy Daugherty, retired. Curiously, Perles was passed over twice previously for the job; Michigan State has a checkered history when it comes to hiring football coaches.

From that moment, Perles and the Spartans were all about business. The winning business.

Perles vowed to lead the Spartans, coming off a 2-9 season in Waters’ final year, back to the respectability it had earned in Daugherty’s tenure.

“If we make all decisions based on winning the Rose Bowl,” Perles told the Detroit Free Press in late 1982, “we won't make a poor decision.”

Those were simpler times, when the Big Ten was truly the “Big Two” and eight other teams, when Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes created the very best rivalry in all of college football for more than a generation.

That’s when Schembechler professed to anyone who would listen that his solitary priority was winning the conference championship and beating the best from the Pac-10 in the Rose Bowl.

The national title was out of his control, voted on by a bunch of media nerds who couldn’t carry a football in a bushel basket.

Then along comes Perles, and the Spartans broke up that little two-team monoply. He led them to two Big Ten titles and a victory over Southern Cal in the 1988 Rose Bowl.

His Spartans didn’t always win, but they were always, always hard to play against. Tough, physical, borderline mean – just like the guys he grew up with in that legendary old neighborhood around Vernor and Junction in Detroit’s west side.

Today, we can only remember, smile, and be grateful for the memories.

Pistons: A rebuild ahead?

With superstar Blake Griffin on the mend from another surgical procedure on his knee, and the NBA trade deadline just 29 days away, we can only imagine what might have been if the Pistons had, just once this season, a completely healthy roster.

It never happened. Griffin played in just 18 of Detroit’s 38 games to date this season, and he is doubtful to return before it’s over. Starting point guard Reggie Jackson has played in just two games. Shooting guard Luke Kennard has missed 10 games with various ailments, and former MVP Derrick Rose is on a minutes restriction, and has missed six games.

Now, with the playoffs in serious doubt, the Pistons look like serious sellers ahead of the Feb. 6 deadline. Sayonara to Andre Drummond, the best rebounder in the game who’s on an expiring contract and not likely to resign with the Pistons. Gone, too, most likely, is Rose, whose rejuvenated play has made him a serious trade chip. We could be seeing the last of Tony Snell and Langston Galloway, too, if the Pistons have their way.

Aside from Griffin, whose health and contract status make him an untradeable “asset,” we’re looking pretty much at a ground up rebuild, much like the Tigers and Red Wings have been going through for years now.

The good news is that the Pistons have some good young talent to build around, like rookie Sekou Doumbouya, Kennard, Snell (if they keep him) and Christian Wood. With the right pick in the right spot in the draft order this spring, a turnaround doesn’t have to take years as it does in the other sports.

Which is why it’s important the Pistons continue losing, as the Wings and Tigers have done so well in recent years.

--

And still standing. . .

With the recent firings of Pete Deboer in San Jose and Peter Laviolette in Nashville, Detroit’s Jeff Blashill is now the third-longest tenured coach in the NHL. Only Jon Cooper in Tampa and Paul Maurice in Winnipeg have served longer with their teams.

Blashill is in his fifth season after replacing Mike Babcock in the spring of 2015.

Interestingly, both DeBoer and Laviolette would be strong candidates to succeed Blashill behind the Wings’ bench – should GM Steve Yzerman decided to make a change after the season.

But Yzerman has proven himself to be an out-of-the-box thinker when it comes to acquiring players and hiring coaches. While in Tampa, Yzerman hired little-known minor-league coach Jon Cooper in 2009.

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December 27th, 2019

Ho, ho, ho! Some much-needed

holiday gifts for our sorry teams

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

It’s Christmas Day, and I’m working. If you’re generous enough to consider this work.

I’m also feeling generous, or at least wishful, and I’m wondering what we might be able to pull out of Santa’s magical sack to make things a little better for each of our sorry professional sports franchises. So here goes:

The Tigers: New ownership. Please. Sadly, this doesn’t seem as imminent as it once did, with real estate baron Dan Gilbert on the mend from a stroke. But it sure as hell doesn’t seem like the family much cares about this club one way or the other since Mike Ilitch died a few years ago. His heirs are running it into the ground, cutting payroll as the team has hit historic lows and attendance plummets at Comerica Park. Since major changes at the top of the food chain aren’t likely, I’d be grateful for a healthy Miguel Cabrera showing up at spring training in a few months and playing a full season in the middle of the retooled batting order that could make watching them a bit more palatable.

The Pistons: A medic with some magic potion. Quick. If only to allow us to see what this team looks like when it’s 100 percent healthy. Which it hasn’t been in the first 32 games of the season and isn’t likely to happen for another couple of weeks – if we’re lucky. When they’re close to full strength – and that means Blake Griffin playing on both legs instead of one – the Pistons have of, well, being at least a playoff-contending team. As they are now though, we should appreciate seeing the best rebounder in the NBA and a former MVP who’s still got it – before they inevitably trade away Andre Drummond and Derrick Rose.

The Red Wings: Patience. I know, I know. . . that’s like the proverbial shirt we get from Grandma every Christmas. But Grandma knew what was best, and so does Steve Yzerman. He inherited a mess, quite frankly, with a team that started a rebuild a few years to late, and in the meantime saddled itself with too many really bad contracts to unproductive veterans. It’s an expensive roster with way too many untradeable players. Sure, there’s promise in several youngsters who are at best two to three years away. There is light at the end of this dark tunnel, and it isn’t an oncoming train. Patience. . . patience.

The Lions: A clue. Is that too much to ask? If the Ford family isn’t going to sell the team or change out another apparently failing regime, they give us something. Anything they can do, show or say that gives us even the slightest bit of confidence that two years into this the Bob Quinn-Matt Patricia command actually knows what it’s doing. Should the fact that this roster has at least been fairly competitive and players haven’t seemed to quit in their coach (yet) be enough? It probably has to be, but the cynic in me says this fiasco isn’t going to look that much different a year from now. Like Santa Claus, the Lions keep expecting us to suspend our belief.

Happy New Year, everyone. Let’s hope for better days for our sports teams.

The envelope please:

Michigan State (6-6), minus-3.5 vs. Wake Forest (8-2) in the Pinstripe Bowl: Do not be misled by the line on this game. Wake started the season 5-0 and extended to 7-1 before losing its quarterback and finishing with three losses down the stretch, which included ACC rival Clemson. They Deacs have a high-powered offense, especially with QB Jamie Newman healthy again. Michigan State’s defense, which has struggled at times, will be tested. Meantime, the Spartans and their 101st-ranked offense will need to find a way to score some points against Wake’s pedestrian defense. Prediction: Wake Forest 23, Michigan State 13.

Michigan (9-3) vs. Alabama (10-2) minus-7 in the Citrus Bowl: Arguably the most compelling of all the bowl games, including the College Football Playoffs, with so many intriguing storylines: injuries to key players; stars sitting out (or playing not to get hurt) with their draft status on the line; Jim Harbaugh vs. Nick Saban on the sidelines with all their acrimonious baggage. Buckle up, this game should be everything and then some. Prediction: Alabama 35, Michigan 17.

No. 1 LSU (13-0) minus-14, vs. No. 4 Oklahoma (12-1): I’d like the Sooners if they weren’t missing two important players to suspension. Take the over. Prediction: LSU 49, Oklahoma 35.

No. 2 Ohio State (13-0) vs. No. 3 Clemson (13-0), minus-2: I’d like the Buckeyes (sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little) if QB Justin Fields was 100 percent. He’s playing on a bum leg, and it’ll cost them. Prediction: Clemson 33, Ohio State 27.

Detroit Lions (3-11-1) vs. Green Bay (12-3), minus-12.5: Both teams have a lot on the line here; the Packers need a win for a bye heading into the playoffs and the Lions need a loss to secure the third pick in the upcoming NFL draft (with a longshot at the second pick if Washington wins at Dallas. Prediction: Green Bay 31, Detroit 13.

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December 19th, 2019

Same empty refrain from Fords

to Lions fans: Wait ’til next year

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

So it turns out, the entire Ford ownership family is tone deaf when it comes to their football team in Detroit.

Principal owner Martha Ford and her daughter, Vice Chair Sheila Hamp Ford, can be just as dismissive of fans and media as Martha’s late husband, William Clay Ford, and their son, Bill Jr., once were.

We learned that this week when the Ford women and team President Rod Wood met with the media to quell any notion that they were firing General Manager Bob Quinn and coach Matt Patricia. Moreover, they said in no uncertain terms – and certainly more disappointing – the family has no intention of selling the team they have owned for 56 years.

William Clay Ford closed on the deal to buy the Lions for $4.5 million on Nov. 22, 1963. News of the purchase was but a footnote in newspapers the next day, which devoted most of their resources to covering the assassination of President John F. Kennedy – to some diehard Detroit football fans only the second worst thing that happened that day.

The Lions have since become a laughingstock in the sports world, a cheap joke that always provokes a laugh because it’s steeped in truth.

Now it only hurts when we laugh. The joke us on us – again.

We can’t help but conclude that from reading the letter from the Ford ownership to fans as tried to justify keeping on this failed regime for another season. The letter reads in part (with my words in parentheses):

“Our 2019 season has not gone as anticipated by anyone in our organization.” (Aw, ya think?)

“Our team has played hard and well enough to be very competitive. It has been well-documented that we are one of only three teams to have held the lead in each of our first 12 games. Unfortunately, all too often, we have come up a few plays short of victory. Our current win-loss record is ultimately very disappointing.” (All too damned true enough.)

“We also believe that the most successful teams in our league have a long-term plan, stability in leadership and exhibit patience to follow their plan. To that end, we are committed to year three of Coach Patricia’s plan.” (Just shoot me now.)

“To be clear, our expectation is for the Lions to be a playoff contender in 2020.” (Let’s cut the bull. Your GM fired a coach whose team had gone 9-7 the previous two seasons, saying the franchise has higher expectations. Make the playoffs next season, or gas both of them.)

“To our dedicated fans: You deserve a winning team that you are excited to cheer for and proud to represent.” (Can we have the Green Bay Packers, please?)

“Our entire organization is working to make the Lions a consistently winning team.” (We’ve heard that garbage for nearly six decades.)

“To our loyal season ticket members: Thank you for your continued support. We are announcing today that once again there will be no price increases for season tickets at Ford Field and several sections at the stadium will see price decreases.” (That’s supposed to make us feel better? They were already ungodly expensive. Did you notice all the empty seats for the Tampa Bay game, when you couldn’t even give away tickets?)

“Thank you for your continued support, Happy Holidays and GO LIONS! Sincerely, Martha Firestone Ford; Sheila Ford Hamp; Rod Wood (All we want for Christmas is for you to sell the team.)

People who understand money far better than I suggest that a sale of the team isn’t even a remote possibility until the passing of Martha Ford, when capital gains taxes will be far more forgiving.

So it remains a valuable family asset even while it embarrasses a legion of exploited, manipulated and mistreated fans.

The Lions franchise today is worth $1.95 billion, according to Forbes magazine in September. That’s the second least-valuable franchise in the NFL, worth about a half-million dollars more than Cincinnati. But do some simple math to conclude that this has been an enormously profitable venture for the family in equity alone – about $1.9 billion. Not to mention the hundreds of millions in profits the team has realized over the past 63 years.

Admit it: You wouldn’t sell either, and you probably wouldn’t care much what the idiots buying tickets and $15 beers thought, would you?

And so we suffer until another bumbling regime takes over some time after next season. Or until some other competent and competitive billionaire comes along, buys this sorry football team and transforms it into something worth investing in our dollars, and, more important, our emotion.

Are you listening Jeff Bezos? Mark Cuban? Dan Gilbert? We know those guys don’t have a hearing problem.

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December 13th, 2019

Careful what you cheer for, Lions fans;

Team can still be No. 2 where it counts

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

Like any other NFL Sunday at Ford Field, a sold-out crowd will spend the morning tailgating along Woodward Avenue and the environs around the stadium, then pack the house and cheer deliriously for the Detroit Lions to do the improbable: actually win a football game.

If those fans had any sense at all – which we know they do not because they will pack the house and cheer deliriously for their poorly coached and badly mismanaged football team – they would hope that Tampa Bay finds a way to beat the Lions with a quarterback trying to pass the ball with a broken right thumb.

Seriously, the Lions have already screwed the pooch on this season. They enter this game with a 3-9-1 record, a 3 ½-point underdog and, for the moment, holding the fifth pick in this spring’s NFL Entry Draft.

This is the time of year when the Lions are prone to screwing things up even more by winning games and squandering their lofty picks.

Here’s the deal: If they lose out and get a break or two from the teams ahead of them, the Lions could wind up with the No. 2 overall selection. While it’s unlikely they’ll catch 1-12 Cincinnati for the first overall pick that most likely will be used to select LSU quarterback and Heisman lock Joe Burrows, there is a most tantalizing (and likely the most coveted) player still available.

His name: Chase Young, the generational talent at defensive end, and widely considered to be the best athlete in the draft. He plays for Ohio State University, but fans in our neighborhood shouldn’t hold that against him.

The Lions haven’t spent many top drafts on Buckeyes over the years, but when they have it’s worked out pretty well: Consider halfback Howard “Hopalong” Cassady (1st round, 3rd overall, in 1956; and offensive tackle Taylor Decker (1st round, 16th overall, in 2016); or, perhaps best of all Buckeyes in Honolulu blue, inside linebacker Chris Spielman (2nd round, 29th overall, in 1988).

Other than Cincinnati, each of the teams below Detroit in the standings have imminently winnable games in the final three weeks of the season:

Miami (3-10) plays the Giants at New York and at home against Cincinnati before closing at New England.

Washington (3-10) closes out with two home games against Philadelphia and the Giants, ending at Dallas.

The Giants (2-11) need quarterback Eli Manning to somehow orchestrate two wins in their final three games: a game at Washington sandwiched around home games against Miami and Philadelphia.

Of course, it’s all moot if the Lions bumble their way to a victory in the final three games: Tampa Bay, at Denver and at home against division-leading Green Bay.

Go Bucs? I’m fine with that. Now how do we convince Lions fans?

The envelope please:

Lions (3-9-1) vs. Tampa Bay (6-7), minus-3.5: Bucs quarterback Jameis Winston can be very good, or very bad – often within the same game. He’s thrown 26 TD passes this season, and offset that with 23 interceptions. He comes to Detroit with a broken thumb on his throwing hand, but I’m thinking he could throw left handed and shred the porous Detroit secondary. On the other side of the ball? How ‘bout we just say a Hail Mary or two for David Blough, the Lions third-string quarterback with another return to Ford Field by Ndamukong Suh, the one-man demolition derby the Lions drafted No. 2 overall in 2011. Suh has jut 1 ½ sacs, but 13 quarterback hits and four fumble recoveries, returning two of them for touchdowns. Prediction: Bucs 24, Lions 13

DECEMBER  11th, 2019

Four NHL coaches gone. Who’s next?

Firing Blashill not the answer for Wings

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

Barely two months into the National Hockey League season, four coaches have already lost their jobs while in Detroit Jeff Blashill – his team mired in a miserable 12-game losing streak – continues to show remarkable staying power.

On Tuesday, Dallas fired coach Jim Montgomery for what General Manager Jim Nill described as “unprofessional conduct” without further explanation, other than to say it did not involve any past or present players, other Stars employees, or a criminal investigation.

A few weeks ago, Toronto fired former Wings coach Mike Babcock, which was followed by the resignation in Calgary of Bill Peters. Both men, who worked together behind the Detroit bench, have been accused by several former players of ruthless verbal abuse that has resulted in a new, zero-tolerance policy announced Tuesday by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.

John Hynes was shown the door earlier in the season in New Jersey.

Meantime, the Red Wings hope to end the second-longest losing streak in franchise history Thursday in the second half of a home-and-home series with Winnipeg. On Tuesday night, they gave up their customary five goals to the Jets while scoring their customary one. Watching the game was hard enough, but when the TV camera panned the Detroit bench to show a shell-shocked, demoralized row of players hanging their heads I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer this can continue.

General manager Steve Yzerman has been the model of patience he had asked of all of us when he took the job last spring. He knew he had a roster that simply didn’t have enough NHL-caliber players. He signed a few free agents to fill some notable holes. He’s made some trades – some good, some not. He has shuffled players back and forth from Grand Rapids when the big team endured a slew of injuries to key players.

Nothing has worked. And I’ve no doubt that Yzerman knows that firing his coach isn’t likely to change things. He could bring back Scotty Bowman or the ghost of Toe Blake and it isn’t going to change things.

So Blashill, whose team squeaked into the playoffs his first season and will miss them again for the fourth straight season en route to a likely last-place overall finish, stays. And stays. And stays.

In fact, Blashill ranks fourth in the NHL in longevity behind the bench with his current team. Jon Cooper, hired by Yzerman in Tampa Bay in 2008, is the longest-tenured coach in the league – and he’s on the hot seat amid a horrendous season compared to the President’s Cup team he led

last year. Paul Maurice in Winnipeg and Peter Laviolette in Nashville were hired by their teams in 2014. Blashill came aboard in Detroit in 2015 after Babcock left for Toronto.

I’ve known Steve Yzerman since before then-coach Jacques Demers pinned the captain’s “C” on him as 20-year-old rising star in the game, and one thing I’ve learned is that The Captain always marched to his own drumbeat. Then, and certainly more recently as a team executive, he has refused to be influenced by media noise or the fickle fan base.

For that reason alone, I would not be surprised to see Blashill finish the season behind the bench. Perhaps few expected the Wings to be as bad as they’ve been this season, but no one sensibly expected them to compete for a playoff berth.

No, Yzerman is as patient as he is stubborn. Clearly he is taking this season to evaluate every facet of the organization, from players at all levels, to coaching staffs, scouting staffs and the analytics team. You might be sick of hearing of it, but it’s a process.

Besides, if not Blashill, then who? Change for the sake of change, just replacing one voice with another on the bench behind a bad team, fixes nothing. Yzerman experienced that in his third season, the last time the Wings finished last overall and wound up firing two head coaches.

So as bad as it gets, and theirs is precious little indication that it’ll improve much, don’t pin your hopes on a new coach. And seriously, blaming the coach for this debacle of a season. It really isn’t Jeff Blashill’s fault.

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DECEMBER 9TH, 2019

NHL’s #MeToo moment? Players

(and Wings) take abuse charges public

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

From the broadcast booth to behind the benches, from front-office investigations that have reached the highest echelons of the National Hockey League, it’s been a hell of a month.

And it has nothing to do with goals and great saves, with wins or losses or with agonizing losing streaks (winking at you, Detroit Red Wings).

It started with a nationally televised racist rant (“you people out there. . .”) that cost one of the most iconic personalities in the game his job – and Don Cherry refuses to apologize.

Then came accusations from a former player that coach Bill Peters repeatedly used “the N word” to berate one of his players when he was coaching in Carolina. Peters eventually moved on to Calgary, and when the Flames immediately began an internal investigation, Peters apologized publicly. Too late. The investigation reached the inner sanctum of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, where it continues.

Peters, the former Red Wings assistant coach, resigned his position on Nov. 27. Seven days earlier, Mike Babcock – the guy Peters worked for in Detroit – was fired by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the fifth year of an eight-year, $50 million contract.

Then the dam broke. A few days after Babcock was fired, news broke that he asked then-rookie Mitch Marner for a list of his teammates, ranking them from hardest-working to least-hardest. Rookies do what coaches tell them to do, but Marner – one of the Leafs’ best young players – was mortified when Babcock used the list to berate players during team meetings.

Inexcusable? Absolutely, at any level of coaching/leadership/management. But the players he coached in Detroit were hardly surprised.

“The worst person I have ever met,” former power forward Johan Franzen told a Swedish interviewer recently. “He’s a bully who was attacking people. It could be a cleaner at the arena in Detroit, or anybody. He would lay into people without any reason.”

Former Wings defenseman Chris Chelios witnessed some of it. One incident, he confirmed in an interview with the podcast “Spittin’ Chiclets,” took place during a playoff game against Nashville in 2012.

“Some of the things he (Babcock) said to him on the bench. . . he blatantly verbally assaulted him during the game,” Chelios said. “It got to the point where poor Johan, no one really knowing he was suffering with the concussion thing and the depression thing, he just broke down, had a nervous breakdown, not only on the bench but after the game in one of the rooms in Nashville.

“It was probably one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.”

Chris Chelios spent 26 seasons and 1,651 games in the NHL.

Chris Chelios saw a lot.

And Chris Chelios was nearly a victim, too. In the same podcast interview, he explained how, near the end of his redoubtable career, Babcock decided to make him a healthy scratch for a New Year’s Day outdoor game in Chicago, Chelios’ home town. General Manager Ken Holland intervened and overruled Babcock, forcing him to play Chelios.

The coach’s solution? He dressed seven defensemen, sent Chelios out for the opening faceoff and then benched him for the rest of the game.

Babcock’s arrogant vindictiveness knew no bounds. And sometimes it just seemed mean and spiteful. Case in point: After 20 years with the Minnesota/Dallas organization, Mike Modano signed on with the Wings in 2010 for one last kick at the big silver can. It could have been a fairy-tale ending for a kid who grew up in suburban Westland, became the first overall NHL draft pick in 1988, and wound up in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Modano ended up retiring with 1,499 regular-season games played, but would’ve hit the 1,500-game mark were it not for Babcock making him a healthy scratch for a late-season game against the Minnesota Wild in 2011.

That’s just bleeping wrong.

No wonder the players so despised Babcock, especially the Swedes.

One former Red Wing, defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo, who had a cup of coffee with the team in 2012-13, told a Canadian sports network last week that Babcock was so hated that ever year team leaders went to Holland to try to get rid of their coach.

Holland’s response to the players: “You got a problem with the coach, come see me and I’ll do my best to find somewhere else for you to play.”

The general manager knew, of course. It’s his job to know. But he was in a tough spot. He felt he had one of the best coaches in the game, so he tried to keep him happy by looking the other way amid all the complaints. In that way, Holland enabled the persistent abuse until Babcock leveraged his way out of town with that massive contract from the Leafs.

Little wonder Holland backed away when Toronto and Buffalo got into a bidding war with a guy who suddenly has dim prospects for ever getting behind an NHL bench again.

First Cherry is fired for racial insensitive remarks, then Babcock gets the boot, then Peters exits the Flames over revelations he repeatedly used racial slur against forward Akim Aliu. Now the

Chicago Blackhawks are conducting a review of assistant coach Mark Crawford after former NHL player Sean Avery accused him of kicking him on the bench while he was playing for the Los Angeles King.

A time-honored tradition, the so-called sanctity of the dressing room, has been shattered. Buckle up. Many are hinting what we’ve heard so far is just the tip of an iceberg that will have far-reaching implications regarding the way the league handles its most precious commodity: the players.

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DECEMBER 6TH, 2019

Lions face major questions as another

disappointing season comes to an end

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

With coach Ron Rivera suddenly, surprisingly available, should the Detroit Lions consider firing Matt Patricia for an experienced, proven winner?

Surely that’s a reasonable question with the Lions bumbling along at 3-8-1 in Patricia’s second season after a 6-10 finish as a rookie coach. Especially since General Manager Bob Quinn fired Jim Caldwell, the coach he inherited, after a 9-7 finish. The bar is higher than that around here, Quinn explained.

Which essentially makes the question about Patricia’s future inadequate.

Shouldn’t owner Martha Ford – who has made no secret about setting a high bar herself – consider sweeping house again by showing both Quinn and Patricia the door?

Team President Ron Wood was thinking in the right direction when he hired Quinn from the New England Patriots, the model of NFL success. And after a couple of years, Quinn replaced the only Detroit coach with a winning record since the Lions parted ways with Joe Schmidt in 1972 with Patricia.

Clearly whatever success those two had with the Patriots has not translated to Detroit, and there is little inclination that it will the way things are going.

Patricia’s strong suit is defense; he’s hailed as a genius in that part of the game. Quinn has spent a lot of money on that side of the ball. The Lions have the worst defense in the league.

Offensively, with any of the three quarterbacks they’ve been forced to use this season because of injuries, the Lions have played well enough to win. In too many games, their defense has folded like the house of cards it is, failing to make a play when needed most, resulting in painful and unnecessary losses.

But even Mrs. Ford knows close doesn’t count. The NFL ain’t horseshoes. And since taking over for her late husband, she has made little secret of her own high expectations for this franchise.

Now she faces some critical decisions. And we can only hope.

The envelope please:

Detroit, 3-8-1, at Minnesota, 8-4, minus-13: Lions third-string quarterback David Blough performed well enough to give his team a chance to beat the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving

Day. But Patricia’s defense caved again. Now Blough has had more than a week to prepare to face the Vikings – in Minnesota, a house of horrors for the Lions for generations. But it’s not the offense that worries me. Led by Michigan native Kirk Cousins at quarterback, the Vikings beat the Lions 42-30 in October. Little wonder the Lions are underdogs by two touchdowns, which sounds to be right: Prediction: Vikes 30, Lions 17

And some major college conference championships, just for fun:

No. 1 Ohio State (12-0), minus-16.5, vs. No. 8 Wisconsin (10-2): The Buckeyes have beaten every one of their opponents this season by an average margin of 28 points. They beat the Badgers, 38-7, in late October. Which makes the line on this game feel odd. It is. Prediction: Buckeyes 33, Badgers 10.

2 LSU (12-0), minus-7, vs. Georgia (11-1): This game pits the nation’s No. 2 scoring offense of LSU vs. the No. 2 scoring defense in the land. But LSU can play some defense, too. The question is, can Georgia score enough to make it a game. The answer: nope. Prediction: Tigers 31, ’Dogs 20.

No. 6 Oklahoma (11-1), minus-9, vs. No. 7 Baylor (11-1): A lot on the line in this one, with the winner likely replacing Georgia in the College Football Playoffs if the Bulldogs lose, as expected to LSU. This should be a classic, an encore after Oklahoma overcame a 25-point deficit to beat Baylor, 34-34, in three weeks ago. The Sooners learned something in that game, and showed something. Prediction: Sooners 31, Bears 24.

Central Michigan (8-4), minus 6.5, vs. Miami OH (7-5): One of the best stories in college football this season, the Chippewas in the MAC Championship Game after going 1-11 last season. Can they keep it going under first-year coach Jim McElwain? Absolutely. Prediction: Chips 23, RedHawks 20.

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NOVEMBER 28TH

‘As the Stomach Turns’: Living with

historically bad Detroit sports teams

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

The Red Wings lost, 6-0, Wednesday night, shut out for the second straight game. It was their seventh loss in a row, during which they have been outscored 29-13. They lost their starting goaltender in the game’s 10th minute, and the backup – who was supposed to start but didn’t because of the flu – finished the game. The defense in front of them gave up a disgraceful 54 shots on goal, the most by a Red Wings team in 45 years.

The Pistons lost for the seventh time in nine games, 102-101, at Charlotte to a team on a five-game losing streak missing its best player. They had plenty of opportunities in their final possession, which included three inbounds attempts in the last 12.3 seconds. They failed to get off a shot.

With their starting quarterback nursing a broken back and their second-stringer hobbled by a hamstring injury, the Lions – who have lost four straight games and seven of their last eight – have announced they’ll start David Blough, an undrafted rookie out of Purdue University who hasn’t thrown a pass in the NFL against the visiting Chicago Bears today.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Try not to choke on your turkey.

For dessert, perhaps a rare Michigan victory over Ohio State on Saturday?

The envelope, please:

Detroit (3-7-1) vs. Chicago (5-6), minus-5.5: As news of the Lions’ quarterback situation worsened in this short week, the line on the game went from pick ‘em to the Bears favored by nearly a touchdown. It shouldn’t be that close. Try to keep your meal down after watching this one. Prediction: Chicago 23, Detroit 9.

Michigan State (5-6, 3-5 in the Big Ten), minus-21.5 vs. Maryland (3-8, 1-7): After starting the season way, way overrated as the No. 18 team in The Associated Press Top-25, the Spartans are desperate for a victory that will make them bowl eligible. That’s how bad this season has turned out. Prediction, for what it’s worth: Michigan State 24, Maryland 13.

No. 13 Michigan (9-2, 6-2 in the Big Ten) vs. Ohio State (11-0, 8-0), minus-9: I was sorely tempted to take the Wolverines in this one; I really wanted to. They’re playing as well as they ever have, perhaps better on both sides of the ball, in Jim Harbaugh’s five years as head coach. Surely the Buckeyes won’t drop another 62 on Don Brown’s defense this season. But even if quarterback Shea Patterson has the game of his life, it may not be enough against Ohio State’s

historically great defense. And a lot of late money is pouring in on OSU to lengthen the odds; that worries me. Prediction: Ohio State 31, Michigan 24.

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NOVEMBER 26TH, 2019

As Harbaugh tries once again to beat Ohio

State, there’s a little Max Mercy in us all

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Writer

In the movie “The Natural,” Robert Duvall’s character Max Mercy was a slime-ball sports writer – which may or may not be redundant, depending on your point of view.

Near the climax of one of the greatest sports stories of all time, Mercy has a conversation with the would-be hero, Robert Redford’s Roy Hobbs, who is under immense pressure to deliver a controversial championship for the fictional and woebegone New York Knights.

Like so many sports stars before and after him, Hobbs loses his patience during Mercy’s persistent prying. Like an annoying gnat that won’t stop buzzing around the eyelids.

Hobbs: “Did you ever play ball, Max?”

Mercy: “No, never have. . . But I make it a little more fun to watch, you see?

“And after today, whether you're a goat or a hero... you're gonna make me a great story.”

I am reminded of that scene as we discuss, ad nauseum this week, Jim Harbaugh’s unrelenting pursuit of one lousy win again archrival Ohio State.

Michigan is playing its best football in the 4½ games since its narrow loss at then-unbeaten and No. 7 Penn State. The Wolverines have been as dominant as they’ve been at any time during Harbaugh’s five seasons in Ann Arbor. Yet his Wolverines still opened as an 8.5-point underdog. Probably about right, all things considered.

So what if they pull off the upset?

For starters, it would be the biggest win of Harbaugh’s rocky tenure as coach at his alma mater.

And it wouldn’t be enough.

Half of Harbaugh’s critics will say it’s about time that he finally managed to beat the program’s bogey man after four straight losses. The other half will gleefully point out that his teams are still 2-9 against Top Ten opponents, that after five seasons the nation’s third-highest-paid coach still has no Big Ten championships and no national playoff appearances.

In other words, Harbaugh will be damned if he does win the game Saturday, and skewered if he doesn’t.

That’s the game. No capitalization necessary, at least outside of Ann Arbor and an anguished fan base beginning to wonder, after all, if this is the coach that will restore the program to actual national prominence.

But at his news conference Monday, Harbaugh seemed to downright downplay the game.

“Very aware of the rivalry, having played in it, having coached in it, grew up here, my dad was a coach,” he said. “As I likened the Michigan State game to a state championship, this is even bigger – this is two states’ championship, Michigan and Ohio. We’re excited about it. We’re excited for the challenge. I’m excited for the game. Up for and ready for the challenge.”

Translation: What was once a perennial national marquee game has become a quaint, regional rivalry. They even understand that in Columbus. And it will continue that way until Michigan finds a way to win more often than it has lately. One lousy victory over the past 15 years does not a rivalry make.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

On Saturday at the Big House, either that ugly streak will continue – or Harbaugh gets that gorilla off his back with an upset victory that will damage Ohio State’s chances for a berth in the College Football Playoff.

Either way, for those of us in the sporting media, Jim Harbaugh’s going to make us a pretty good story.

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NOVEMBER 12th, 2019

Sour Grapes: Don Cherry stands

by his words even after his firing

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

First things first: I’ve always liked Don Cherry. He entertained me long before I ever got into hockey media, and when I got to know him he was always kind, cordial and willing to help a guy with a fledgling radio show back when sports-talk radio was born in Detroit.

“Call any time,” the iconic Hockey Night in Canada commentator would say. “If I’m home and pick up the phone, I’ll give you all the time you need, don’t worry about it.”

And I took him up on it because Grapes was great radio just like he was great TV for nearly four decades.

One more thing: I am in no way defending the comments he made that got him fired, using his bully pulpit (and few ever did it better), to criticize certain citizens in Canada who failed to honor his nation’s military by wearing a poppy symbol on their lapel on Remembrance Day.

“You people that come here, you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey, at least you can pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like that,” Cherry said during his traditional first-intermission segment on Saturday night. “These guys paid for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada.”

Remembrance Day in Canada, like Veterans Day in America, honors those who have served in the armed forces. Ahead of the Nov. 11 commemoration, Canadian veterans groups and volunteers distribute poppy pins and stickers in exchange for donations, and the poppies are worn as a symbol of honor.

Two days later, Cherry, 85, was fired by Sportsnet and Hockey Night in Canada for those divisive comments aimed at immigrants. Sportsnet, Hockey Canada and the NHL released statements condemning Cherry’s remarks.

But true to form, Cherry wasn’t backing off, conceding only that if he had it to do over again, he’d choose a few words differently.

“I know what I said and I meant it. Everybody in Canada should wear a poppy to honor our fallen soldiers,” Cherry told the Toronto Sun. “I speak the truth and I walk the walk. I have visited the bases of the troops, been to Afghanistan with our brave soldiers at Christmas, been to cemeteries of our fallen around the world and honored our fallen troops on ‘Coach’s Corner.’”

And while the Canadian sports media – many of the same ones who crowded around the TVs in arenas around Canada during Saturday night games to listen to Cherry, nod and snicker – tripped

all over themselves to denounce he remarks that got him fired, the Internet nearly broke with people flocking to social media to support him.

This isn’t at all surprising. Nobody knows his audience better than Don Cherry, save for a certain president south of the Canadian border who shares his first name.

I remember when Sergei Fedorov broke into the league in 1990 and had a spectacular rookie season with the Red Wings. He scored 31 goals among 79 points, running neck and neck with Chicago goalie Ed Belfour in the Calder Trophy conversation. Cherry used no small amount of his time on the air to openly campaign for Belfour – that good Canadian boy.

When I ran into Grapes at a radio appearance on a show then hosted by Mitch Albom, I confronted him and point blank asked if he was lobby for Belfour or against Fedorov because he was Russian. What I got in response was what we call in journalism a non-denial denial of sorts.

“Keith, you’ve got to remember who I work for,” Cherry said. “It’s called Hockey Night in Canada.”

So it is. And so, too, the time has finally come to silence a great voice that made us laugh sometimes, made is cringe too often, but always, always made us love and appreciate the game of hockey just a little bit more.

I’ll miss Don Cherry.

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NOVEMBER 8th, 2019

Can Lions’ generous defense lead

to upset over woebegone Bears?

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

Maybe the oddsmakers in Vegas figure that this is the game embattled Chicago Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky will use to turn his season around. Maybe, like so many Detroit fans, those gamesters have lost faith that the Lions will ever get their act together on the defensive side of the ball. Maybe they’re just convinced that the Lions have established a pattern of coming close, but finding ways to lose, and they’re just rolling with it.

Whatever their reasoning, it’s hard to bet against them. After all, those massive, gleaming high-rise casino hotels along The Strip didn’t get built by losing bets to schmucks like us who think we know better.

Yet I cannot help but wonder how they set a line favoring the bad news Bears by 2½ points over a Lions team that could easily be – with break here, some decent officiating there, and one or two fewer boneheaded play-calls at critical moments – 6-2 instead of 3-4-1.

So yeah, this line is screaming to plunk a few shekels down on the Lions.

This should, by any measure, be a fascinating game. Not just because it involves two of the longest-standing NFL rivals in one of the great basilicas of the game, but because of the teams’ strengths and weaknesses match up.

On one side, we have one of the best offensives in the league lead by quarterback Matthew Stafford against one of the stouter defenses featuring one-man wrecking crew Khalil Mack.

Stafford is on a roll. He has thrown for more than 300 yards and three-plus touchdowns with an interception in each of his past three games. His 19 TD passes are second in the league, his 2,499 passing yards are fourth, and his 106 efficiency rating is fifth.

But Mack leads a defense that ranks in the top third of the league in most categories – and sixth in points allowed, averaging 18 per game.

In other words, even if Stafford is at the top of his game points are going to be hard to come by.

Which makes the flip side of the game that much more captivating: How Trubisky and one of the worst offenses in the league can take advantage of one of the worst defensive teams.

Chicago’s offense has been impotent in the second season under Trubisky, the second-overall pick in the draft last year who as a rookie led the Bears to a 12-4 record and the playoffs. So far this season, the Bears are 3-5, and they haven’t played nearly as well as that record indicates.

The Bears rank 29th among the NFL’s 32 teams in total yards per game (266.8), 30th in passing yards (186.2), 27th in rushing yards (80.5) and 28th in points per game (17.8).

But the Lions – and this is a shameful indictment on head coach and so-called defensive guru Matt Patricia in his second season – rank as bad or worse on the defensive side of the ball. Detroit ranks 31st in total yards allowed (424.1), 30th in passing yards (288.4), 27th in rushing yards (135.8) and 27th in points allowed (27.1).

Talk about the movable object against the resistible force!

And the stakes are sky-high. Playoff chances go on life support for the team that loses this one. Then we could be saying something similar 18 days later, when the rivals meet for a rematch at Ford Field on Thanksgiving Day.

Prediction: Lions 24, Bears 13

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Illinois (5-4, 3-3 in the Big Ten) at Michigan State (4-4, 2-3), minus 14.5: The stakes couldn’t be higher for either team. The Illini, who beat Wisconsin and nearly knocked off Michigan, can secure a bowl bid with a win. A loss by the Spartans would cripple their chances of a bowl bid. The line on this game is beyond baffling, considering MSU’s enigmatic offense and a defense that during its second bye round in three weeks lost linebacker and second-year captain Joe Bachie, suspended by the Big Ten after tests detected performance-enhancing drugs. Prediction: Upset Alert, Illinois 24, Michigan State 23.

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OCTOBER 28th, 2019

Wolverines serve notice:

They’re not through yet

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

OK, anybody who even remotely expected No. 19 Michigan to beat No. 8 Notre Dame by 31 points – even in a cold, driving rain at the Big House – raise your hand.

Now put your damned hand down, because we all know you have a tenuous relationship with the truth. And perhaps everyone else might reconsider some of those nasty things they’ve been saying about coach Jim Harbaugh and his embattled team of which so much had been expected.

You know it’s bad when students take to social media and viciously attack a player for his mistake on the playing field. Something real fans wouldn’t dream of doing.

Alas, Michigan put its season back on the tracks with an astonishingly impressive 45-13 victory over the not-so-Fighting Irish – a pick ’em game according to oddsmakers who at various times ahead of kickoff had either team favored by a point or two.

To be fair, the win didn’t put the Wolverines any closer to winning their first Big Ten title in 15 years – three coaches ago. But with their second victory in a dozen tries against a top-10 opponent, they sure have to be feeling better about themselves.

So to, must Harbaugh. And let’s give him some legit credit here, too. Remember how he was universally mocked after the 10-3 win over Iowa, when he insisted his team’s offense was coming together, getting closer to what he expected it to be? They typically fawning Detroit media even made headlines out of what the university’s mammoth fan base was thinking: “What game were you watching, Coach?”

Well, in the three games since, including that heartbreaking loss at Penn State, Michigan has averaged 36 points per game. All credit to the offensive line, which thoroughly dominated an overmatched Notre Dame defense. The Wolverines totaled 437 yards in the game, 303 on the ground, which meant quarterback Shea Patterson didn’t have to do all the heavy lifting in order for his team to have a chance to win. He was an efficient 6-12 passing, for 100 yards and two touchdown.

On the other side of the ball? The Wolverines were every bit as good. Stuffing the run and holding a team that won 18 of its previous 20 games – and appeared in the College Football Playoff last season – to just 180 yards of total offense, 47 on the ground.

Never mind the rain, that’s how those great Michigan teams under Bo Schembechler won so many games – and Big Ten titles.

Of course, none of that matters of Michigan coughs up a hairball at Maryland next week, or discovers another way to lose to Michigan State in Ann Arbor after a bye week, or loses to lowly Indiana after that. The Wolverines should win all three of them, making them 9-2 when, in all likelihood, unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Ohio State visits Ann Arbor on Nov. 30.

In other words, Harbaugh and his staff have about a month to coach up their team before yet another epic battle. And if Michigan plays like it did against both top-10 teams in the past two weeks, well – raise your hand if you think. . .

Never mind. Just buckle up and enjoy what should be a rousing regular-season finish.

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Coach’s hot corner?

Rebuilding or not, with the Red Wings’ losing streak at eight games and counting and red hot Edmonton visiting the Pizz-Arena on Tuesday evening, fans are getting restless.

Rabid Blarney Stone Broadcasting listener Ken Clapp from Mio wrote recently to ask how long this can continue before General Manager Steve Yzerman pulls the plug on Jeff Blashill’s coaching career in Detroit.

Blashill was on and off life-support through his first four seasons, yet he received a golden parachute of sorts, a new two-year deal, as a parting gift from former GM Ken Holland. To the great dismay of many.

But fans who think changing suits behind the bench are delusional. Yzerman could bring back the diamond-knuckled Scotty Bowman and the result wouldn’t be much better. The Red Wings just don’t have enough NHL talent, especially on their blue line.

Since the day he was hired, no one with any sense expected Blashill to win a Stanley Cup – or even make the playoffs, to be perfectly honest. What he was expected to do is what he does so well, and that’s develop young players. He is doing that.

Besides, how would it look for Yzerman, who preached patience from the moment he returned to Detroit in his new gig, if gassed his coach barely a dozen games into the season? Not good.

That said, Blashill has to up his game, too. A gutsy, third-period comeback that turned a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead can not be squandered like it was Saturday night. A bench penalty for too many men led to a late, tying goal and the eventual OT game-winner by the defending Stanley Cup champs.

That cannot happen and Blashill, to his credit, took responsibility. Like he acknowledged, points are too hard to come by as it is.

Sure, a guy standing next to Blashill would be the obvious choice if Yzerman were to make a mid-season change. Assistant Dan Bylsma – a Michigan native like Blashill – coached the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup finals in 2008 and 2009, both against Detroit. The Wings won the first meeting, Pittsburgh the next. So Bylsma has the bling, and the cred.

But I just don’t see that happening. Instead, expect the I-96 shuttle between Detroit and Grand Rapids to be awfully busy as Yzerman shuffles his youngsters up and down to get a feel for what he has among his understudies. From there, he can determine what his team needs through trades, free-agent signings and, most importantly, the entry draft.

Firing the coach resolves nothing, in this case.

In other cases, well. . . we’ll see how things unfold in East Lansing after the football season.

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OCTOBER 23rd, 2019

Did Belichick really snooker

Detroit on the Patricia deal?

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

As wild-ass conspiracy theories go, this one makes a lot more since at the moment than it did even a few weeks ago.

In fact, after watching the Detroit Lions defensive debacle against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, and a virtuoso performance by the New England defense in shutting out a New York Jets team that had beaten the Dallas Cowboys the week before, the theory makes too much sense.

It goes something like this: Evil genius Bill Belichick, mastermind of six Super Bowl titles with the Patriots, convinced Lions General Manager Bob Quinn that Matt Patricia would be the perfect head coach for the beleaguered Lions. The three men worked together for years in New England, Quinn serving as director of pro scouting and Patricia as defensive coordinator.

In Quinn’s first two seasons in Detroit, with Jim Caldwell serving as head coach, the Lions went 9-7, making the playoffs in 2016 and missing the next. That wasn’t going enough, Quinn said. We’ve set the bar higher than that.

He fired Caldwell to hire Patricia, and the result as an immediate turnaround, all right. The Lions went 6-10 in Patricia’s rookie season, and they’re headed in that direction again if he can’t figure out how to coach his defense.

Through five games this season, Detroit looked fairly competitive, getting a lot of love from around the country after they were jobbed repeatedly by officials in a last-second loss in Green Bay on Monday Night Football.

Then came the Vikings in a critical divisional game at Ford Field.

And.

It.

Was.

No.

Contest.

On the strength of Matt Stafford’s golden right arm, the Lions scored 30 points. Plenty enough to win a game on your own field, right? Not.

It wasn’t even close as Detroit’s defense folded. It looked like men against boys at every level.

Can’t blame the officials this time, eh?

Suddenly, the Detroit Lions have much bigger headaches than the guys in the striped shirts.

What was supposed to be the strength of their team – its defense – is clearly their biggest weakness, soft, porous, and generous to a fault. Disgraceful.

By land or by air, the Vikings moved the ball at will – 32 first downs, 6-10 on third-down conversions, 166 yards on the ground, 337 passing for a total of 503.

Minnesota quarterback Kirk Cousins – embattled no more after throwing four TD passes in each of his past two games – was so comfortable in the pocket he could have set up a table and enjoyed a cup of tea with his offensive linemen. The Lions didn’t record a sack. Barely touched him, in fact.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Patriots traveled to MetLife Stadium in New York the next day, and their defense under coordinator Brian Flores absolutely destroyed the Jets in a 33-0 rout. The Jets managed just 12 first downs, two on 11 chances on third down. New York managed just 154 total yards.

Worse, the Pats’ jailbreak defensive rush forced four interceptions and three fumbles, two of which were lost. Quarterback Sam Darnold, who was mic’d during the game, was heard telling his teammates on the sidelines he was seeing ghosts out there. (And by the way, shame on ESPN – and the NFL Films official who approved it – for airing that comment.)

To be perfectly honest, that defensive display I saw on Monday by the Patriots was what I had expected from this Detroit defense Quinn and Patricia had assembled. This season was supposed to be different. Better, much better, in Year 2 under the genius head coach.

They spent $90 million in the off season to bring in edge rusher Trey Flowers, who has just one sack and three quarterback rushes in seven games. They added defensive lineman Mike Daniels, who defected from Green Bay to Detroit specifically to play for Patricia. (Daniels has missed more time than he’s played due to injury.) They added Justin Coleman and Jahlani Tavia.

Granted, the defense hasn’t been healthy and all together for a single game this season. A’Shawn Hand, Daniels and cornerback Darius Slay have missed games and been less than 100 percent much of the season.

And now, curiously (or inexplicably), they’ve traded away one of their key players on the back end, safety Quandre Diggs, for a draft pick.

How are we expected to interpret this? Is there another shoe to drop? Will they make a move before the Oct. 29 NFL trade deadline to shore up their troubled run game now that Kerryon Johnson has been sidelined yet again, for several weeks at least? Scoring becomes more difficult when the offense becomes so one-dimensional, as Detroit’s has been for years.

For now, though, the Lions have to get their defense off life support. That begins, Flowers insists, by stopping the run first. Teams have to earn the right to rush the passer, he said. If they cannot, then they’ll see a lot of play-action plays that prevent defenders from pinning their ears back in the race toward a quarterback.

It may seem like a Catch-22, but Patricia and his defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni better figure it out fast. They can start with a better effort against the woebegone New York Giants on Sunday at Ford Field.

Detroit opened, shockingly, as a 7-point favorite over the Giants, which says a lot more about the visitors than home team.

So if the Lions stink out the joint again, we can start a new conspiracy theory: Bob Quinn, in an effort to save his own ass, is seriously considering cutting his losses with Patricia and elevate Darrell Bevell as acting head coach for the remainder of the season. Who knows were Patricia would wind up, but it sure as heck isn’t likely to be on the sidelines with Belichick.

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And furthermore. . .

Speaking of conspiratorial conjecture, or wild-eyed rumors, how about the one that has Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh exploring an exit strategy that will get him out of that pressure cooker at the Big House and back to the NFL?

Two thoughts: 1) This just doesn’t seem like something Harbaugh would do. Championships or not, he has been successful in restoring some national luster to that program. And 2) Could you blame him?

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OCTOBER 17th, 2019

MSU’s Dantonio at a crossroads?

And what about UM’s Harbaugh?

By KEITH GAVE

Sports Director

Mark Dantonio might well consider this just another “dumbass question,” but I’m wondering how he’d respond to the growing speculation around college football that his days at Michigan State are numbered.

The winningest coach in Spartans’ football history has five games remaining on the schedule this season – six if his team is lucky enough to beat the three worst teams in its division, finish a lackluster 7-5 again, and qualify for some lower-tier bowl game.

To be fair, as disappointing as MSU has been in three of the past four seasons since Dantonio led the Spartans to the College Football Playoffs, he has probably built enough benevolence to make him immune from being fired. At least for now. But at what point does the guy say enough is enough and walk away with his legacy cemented as the coach who turned around a long-dormant program and returned it to national relevance?

Surely it’s at least in the back of his mind during this bye week after two straight horrific road losses at Ohio State and Wisconsin – with Penn State on the horizon at Spartan Stadium next week. A brutal streak of games against three of the top seven teams in the nation.

Which explains why a lot of smart money says this is the year it comes to an end for Dantonio. And then? Enter Luke Fickell, from Cincinnati via Ohio State – the same path Dantonio took to East Lansing? Again, that’s where the smart money is betting.

Perhaps it’s time. Michigan State’s program has gone way off the tracks since that 12-2 season in 2015.

There have been serious recruiting issues, with the Spartans targeting players of questionable character with checkered pasts in a misguided attempt to hang with the elite programs.

A former assistant, Curtis Blackwell Jr., once the director of college advancement and performance/camp director for the football program, is suing Dantonio and other MSU officials for wrongful dismissal following allegations that he was involved in the coverup of a sexual assault report against three football players. A federal judge has ordered Dantonio to sit for up to seven hours of questioning in a deposition following the football season.

Now some of his top players are heading for the exits. In the past two weeks, four players have entered the transfer portal, including the top two running backs entering the season, Connor Heyward and La’Darius Jefferson.

Together, that’s more than enough for the university’s embattled administration to offer a gentle nudge – with a lovely parting gift of, say, a good chunk of the $4.3 million retention bonus Dantonio is due on Jan. 15?

And as long as we’re asking such “dumbass” questions, what’s Michigan going to do, after all the promise, hope and hype entering Jim Harbaugh’s fifth se