Mr. Hockey’s return:

The unmistakable DETROIT — whiff of a sewer line hits you near the corner of Steve Yzerman Drive and Jefferson Avenue before you set foot on the steps that climb into Joe Louis Arena, a nearly windowless, drab gray building on the banks of the Detroit River.

Despite the stench and lack of sunlight, the Motor City has enjoyed many fond memories in the home of the Detroit Red Wings, where the franchise has raised four Stanley Cup banners to rafters also crowded by tributes to some of hockey’s all-time greats, like Gordie Howe and Steve Yzerman.

Red-and-white clad fans have been filling seats in the 20,058-seat arena, saying so long in the same season the Red Wings ended their playoff streak at 25. The arena is not scheduled to host another hockey game after Detroit plays Montreal tonight and New Jersey on Sunday night. The Red Wings will begin a new era with the Pistons at nearby Little Caesars Arena next season.

Detroit had one of the best runs in NHL history from the early 1990s until last season, when they tied the third-lon- gest playoff streak in league history. Years ago, though, its hockey team was known as the “Dead Wings,” and cars were given away to get fans to attend games shortly after moving from Olympia Stadium to Joe Louis Arena for the 1979-80 season.

“This team was not very good when The Joe opened,” said NBC announcer Doc Emrick, a Michigan resident who was a season-ticket holder for 20-plus years.

Things sure improved, though. Here’s a look back at some of the memorable moments at Joe Louis Arena.

Howe played for the Red Wings from the 1946-47 season until retiring for the first time in 1971. He returned Feb. 5, 1980, in his 50s as a Hartford Whaler and was welcomed back at the NHL All-Star Game with an ovation people are still talking about nearly four decades later.

“That can’t be duplicated,” said Al Sobotka, who has taken care of the ice for the Red Wings for decades. “It was unbelievable. The atmosphere was jumping.”

Hoops at The Joe:

The Pis- tons were pushed out of their home in the suburbs at Pontiac Silverdome due to a scheduling conflict April 27, 1984, when they closed an opening-round series against the Bernard King-led New York Knicks. Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas scored 16 points in the final 90 seconds of regulation for the Pistons to force overtime before the Knicks went on to win the game and series.

“I will never forget the elec- tric atmosphere of joe Louis arena that night,” Thomas wrote in a text message to The Associated Press on Thursday night. “The fans inspired me to one of my greatest perfor- mances ever and I thank them for bringing the best out of me and countless others who experienced the energy of Joe Louis Arena.”

Ending a drought:

Yzer- man, simply known as The Captain by Red Wings fans, hoisted the Stanley Cup after finishing off a sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers on June 7, 1997. That ended an NHL championship drought that dated to 1955.

“That was the best,” said Karen Newman, who has been singing the national anthem for the Red Wings at home games for nearly 30 years. “Grown men were crying. Confetti was falling. I still have confetti in my glass jar from that game. That’s how important that moment was. It was huge.”

The Red Wings repeated in 1998 and are still the last franchise to pull off the feat. They won three Stanley Cups in a six-season stretch and a fourth in an 11-season span, shortly after the salary cap stopped them from spend- ing more than most teams in the league.

Off the ice and away from the crowds, Yzerman enjoyed getting to know some of the all-time greats who wore the winged wheel for the storied franchise.

“What I have always found unique about the Red Wings is I come into this building as a kid, you walk in and one day you see Gordie Howe, you talk to Gordie Howe,” Yzerman recently recalled. “The next day, you walk in and you see Ted Lindsay.”

A slew of stars on the 2002 team have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, including drafted and developed Yzer- man and Nick Lidstrom and veteran acquisitions Bren- dan Shanahan and Brett Hull. They were coached by one of the best in any sport, Hall of Famer Scotty Bowman, who announced his retirement June 13, 2002, to end a career that included a record nine Cups.

The Red Wings hosted Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals on June 12, 2009, with a chance to hoist the Cup for the second straight season under coach Mike Babcock. After losing 2-1 to the Pen- guins in 2009, Detroit hasn’t lasted longer than the second round in the playoffs.

End of an era:

The NBA says NEW YORK — shortening the 82-game season won’t be the answer to the issue of teams resting healthy players.

Commissioner Adam Sil- ver said owners did not discuss a shorter schedule at their meeting Friday, but he hopes other steps can help with what he said was the most important issue facing the league.

“I’d say because there is no support right now, hard support, for a belief that sim- ply reducing the number of games will reduce the number of injuries,” Silver said. “As best we understand the issue right now, it’s a func- tion of spacing games.”

For now, the league’s Board of Governors — owners and their representatives — recommended that teams avoid resting multiple healthy players for national TV games, and when it’s necessary to rest players, to do it during home games.

On another matter, the governors ruled that Char- lotte would be eligible to host the 2019 All-Star Game after a compromise deal to replace a North Carolina law that limited anti-discrimi- nation protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people.

Charlotte will resubmit its application to host the weekend it was scheduled to have in February.

But the rest issue contin- ues to vex Silver, who realizes players need breaks but says fans and TV part- ners paying billions want to see the stars as much as possible.

“So there’s no more important issue for the league right now,” Silver said. “I mean, it goes to the heart of what we do and to the core of competition.”

Silver sent a memo to owners last month, urging them to be more mindful of the rest decisions, after Golden State and Cleveland rested multiple All-Stars during back-to-back Saturday prime-time games on ABC.

But he doesn’t seem ready to punish teams, at least yet, saying he was “trying to find the right line between cajoling and new requirements.”

“What we talked about among our owners was a sense of obligation to the game and what appropriate behavior is,” Silver said. “And so what we concluded is if we could focus on these two issues, namely, to the extent you’re resting, resting at home and avoiding resting multiple starters, especially in marquee games, we could solve a large part of the problem,” Silver said.

The league will start the 2017-18 season a week earlier, which he hopes will trim about two back-to-backs per team and possibly slash stretches of four games in five nights entirely.

The NBA hoped it had already alleviated that problem this season when backto-backs were trimmed to an average of 16.3 per team, down from 19.3 per team just two years ago. Also, no team had more than one four-in-five stretch for the first time in league history.

But coaches, armed in some cases with medical data telling them when a night off would be optimal, don’t seem to be resting their best any less.

The Spurs, at the forefront of the resting strategy under coach Gregg Popovich, rested Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol for their game Friday against Dallas on the opener of a back-to-back.