Detroit Red Wings

The Detroit Red Wings are perhaps the most iconic American team in the NHL, with the fiery red wheel on their jerseys evoking images of speed, ferocity, and excitement. Their total of 11 Stanley Cups is indeed the best of any team south of the Canadian border (we would usually say 49th Parallel, but Toronto is actually south of that latitude), behind only the Toronto Maple Leafs (13 Stanley Cups) and Montreal Canadiens (24 Stanley Cups). The Red Wings first joined the NHL in 1926 (originally as the Detroit Cougars and Detroit Falcons) as part of the league’s first efforts to expand into the northern United States. The team won the Cup three times in their early years and then five more times during the 25-year period of the Original Six. Four of these Stanley Cups were won within a five year period from 1950-1955, when the Red Wings were led by Ted Lindsay and “Mr. Hockey” himself, the incomparable Gordie Howe, along with the peerless Terry Sawchuk in goal. It was during this time in Detroit that one of the most unusual (and possibly grossest) traditions in all of professional sports developed, when a local fishmonger chucked an octopus onto the ice during the playoffs in 1952. Supposedly, the octopus’s eight legs symbolized the eight wins it would take the Wings to win the Stanley Cup (in those days) and after they won the Cup that year, the octopus toss became a Motor City tradition that continues, for better or worse, to this day. The team entered a forgettable decade and a half following the league expansion of 1967, in which they made the playoffs just twice, but they seldom looked back after that, becoming one of the league’s consistently best teams. The Red Wings made the playoffs 25 seasons in a row between 1990-91 and 2015-16, one of the longest consecutive runs of playoff appearances in all of American and Canadian professional sports. Under coach Scotty Bowman, considered by many to be the best head coach of all time, the team also lifted the Stanley Cup again in 1997 for the first time in over 40 years, defeating their modern arch-rivals, the Colorado Avalanche, in the Conference Finals en route to the Finals amidst as many fisticuffs as goals. The Red Wings repeated the feat the very next year in 1998, sweeping the Washington Capitals, and again in 2002 against the Carolina Hurricanes (after an incredible seven-game battle with the Avalanche in the previous round). They were back at again against the newly-risen power of Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals of 2008 and broke Sid the Kid’s heart with a six-game victory. The Wings tried for a repeat in 2009 against those same Penguins, but lost in a thrilling seven-game epic. Frustratingly for their many passionate fans, the Red Wings have slipped into a rapid decline in recent seasons, missing the playoffs seven years in a row. Surely, though, the boys from Hockeytown, as Detroit is now known, can’t stay down and out for long?