Red Wings’ new rink hot and ready to serve
State-of-the-art Little Caesars Arena pays homage to Detroit’s hockey lore
The Red Wings’ new rink is not your average Joe.
Praised for its design and esthetics, the US$863-million Little Caesars Arena is getting great reviews in the seats, on the ice and in the sky, where natural light from a glass roof joins the building to club offices and $2.1 billion worth of present and future retail, dining and entertainment space.
Dingy Joe Louis Arena, which stood by the unremarkable Detroit riverfront, had two small windows in the entire building, one of them a security gate.
“The nice thing is that this is part of the city,” said Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg before Friday’s exhibition game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. “It’s not one of those arenas that looks like a spaceship or something else. This is actually part of the architecture in the city and it sits pretty well.”
Sadly, Little Caesars Arena opened Sept. 5 after the death of visionary team patriarch Mike Ilitch. Its true test in terms of being as intimidating as the Joe and the long-gone Olympia comes over the next few weeks. The Leafs — and their travelling fans from the Windsor, Ont., side of the river — were expected to provide a better indicator of hockey noise levels Friday. The Wings’ home opener is six days away against the Minnesota Wild with the Montreal Canadiens coming Nov. 30 and the Leafs for real on Dec. 15.
“I think a lot of tickets were sold to other (pre-season tilts versus Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago),” Zetterberg said. “But there is so much to see here that fans walked around and would come in once in a while to watch the game. Tonight will be different and hopefully we’ll get a lot of Leafs fans, too. It’s always a great atmosphere when we play them.”
The bright red seats jump out and there is a new video board to replace the Joe’s, which looked like an Etch A Sketch when just about every other team went to high definition. But it’s the wide concourses and design features that set the Pizza Palace apart as the deep thinkers borrowed elements of other new NHL arenas and added their own Motownthemed ideas.
Bronze statues of team greats Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio taking slapshots mingle with murals such as a winged wheel logo made of car parts. They consist of 186 pieces from 13 Chevrolet models, weighing 772 pounds. Another entrance has a three-storey Howe banner next to a vertical replica of the Olympia marquee. Detroit’s more recent Stanley Cup exploits are celebrated in the corridor outside the Wings’ dressing room that leads to the ice past a fancy restaurant, a Wall of Fame and photos of major trophy winners. Interactive video kiosks around the horn invite fans to replay great moments in team history.
The oldest Cup banners from the Joe now reside in the adjacent practice rink, where the Wings can watch while working out in their gym through a one-way mirror. The practice rink can also hold a few hundred fans to watch the top players in the Little Caesars minor-hockey program.
“What’s the best part (of Little Caesars Arena)? Boy, there are too many to talk about,” Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “It just blows you away whether you’re in the dressing room, the lockerroom complex ... The theatre room for team meetings is second to none.
“I’ve sat in seats all around the arena, not for action, but just to check them out. The steepness of the bowls and the gondola makes it feel like it’s enclosed and it’s great.”
Zetterberg played 14 seasons at the Joe, once considered an NHL jewel in the early 1980s, so he had a very long string of requests when approached by the team.
“We had a wish list of what we wanted in and we didn’t get one no,” a happy Zetterberg said. “Everything you could dream of we have here. It’s pretty cool to come in here every day and get ready for practices and games.
“The (training room), the gym is really nice, state of the art. Our pool area, treadmills and all the stuff for rehab purposes is first class. It’s a real upgrade for us.”
The Wings logo has been taken out of the dressing room carpet and is spotlit from the ceiling, a long overdue move after years of media and visitors were forbidden to step on it despite its central location.
Blashill said having the practice sheet right next door, with clubs such as New Jersey and Columbus having seen the benefits of such proximity, “might be my favourite part.”
“It’s either go left or go right (for simultaneous workouts),” he said. “That’s amazing considering what we’ve been doing here the last number of years (the Joe serving both as game and practice rink).
“Getting a chance to be the first coach in Little Caesars Arena is a special thing. I don’t take that lightly.”
With any luck, Blashill might see an octopus or two mess up that new ice near playoff time.