BOOTH GOING HOME TO DETROIT — TO PLAY
Detroit native ( and rink rat) has never skated as a pro there; wants to end Wings’ winning streak
The Detroit Red Wings are on an unbelievable streak. So is David Booth. The Vancouver Canuck winger plans to end both tonight.
Booth, who grew up a Red Wings’ fan in the Detroit suburb of Shelby, has been in the National Hockey League for nearly six years. He has played 343 games, 167 of them on the road. And until now, the 27- year- old has never played in Detroit at Joe Louis Arena, where as a boy he sat in the first row behind the glass, next to the Zamboni entrance.
His parents, Mike and Karen, still have a share of those season tickets after 28 seasons. Their daughter, Rachael, and another of their three sons, Joel, will be in the seats tonight. Joel will be the one in green.
“He’s going to dress as a Green Man,” Mike said Wednesday on the phone after picking up David for dinner. “You’ll be able to see him on TV. That will be my son. We are all Canucks.”
Mike Booth, who runs a dental practice, figures David’s personal cheering section will be in excess of 50 fans.
David’s brother, Matt, has travelled from Florida for the game. Many of David’s friends, old coaches and former teammates, are attending.
Most have been there before to see David. But this time, he’ll actually be there, too, when the Canucks play the Red Wings for first place in the NHL.
“The joke is they don’t think I really play in the NHL,” Booth smiled.
As a rookie with the Florida Panthers in 2006, Booth injured his knee two games before a visit to Detroit.
“That was unfortunate,” he recalled Wednesday before the Canucks travelled to Detroit. “I couldn’t walk, nothing I could do. I was really bummed because I was looking forward to that. I think I bought 30 tickets. Last time I said: ‘ I’m probably not even playing, so maybe it’s better if you get your own tickets.’ Not that I’m superstitious or anything.”
If you think David was crushed, imagine how his dad felt.
“I bought a private suite for that game,” Mike Booth said. “People started pulling out when they heard that David wasn’t going to be there, so it was half empty for the game. I think I just paid off the credit card for that one.”
When the NHL schedulemaker next saw fit to allow the Panthers to cross the mysterious conference divide, seemingly an abyss that at one point restricted Eastern teams to visiting some Western cities once in three years, Booth was out with a concussion after Mike Richards’ devastating hit in 2009.
The Panthers traded Booth to Vancouver in October, nine days after the Canucks lost 2- 0 to the Red Wings in Detroit.
Booth’s last game at Joe Louis was during his final year at Michigan State University. It was the 2005- 06 league title game against Miami- Ohio. Booth scored the winning goal.
The next season he went off to play for the Panthers.
And six years and 343 games later ...
“I guess I saved the best for last,” Booth said. “Six years later, I’m finally going to be able to play there.
“My family is my biggest fans. They’ve travelled to Vancouver, travelled to Florida. They’ve made long road trips, to Montreal, to see me play. Just to go there and play where I grew up will be pretty special. Really cool.
“I grew up having season tickets to the Wings. Front row. I was there when they won the Stanley Cup in ‘ 96. I’ve always dreamed of playing there against the Wings. It’s going to be pretty cool going back there. A lot of memories.”
Mike Booth remembers that he and his wife found ways to sneak two of their children into Joe Louis, where they watched the Wings from their parents’ laps until they were five or six and ushers started to notice.
David was 11 when the Wings won in 1996, and not much has changed since then. Nicklas Lidstrom still anchors the defence and his league- leading team is trying to win another Cup. Detroit is also on a record ( with an asterisk) 23- game home winning streak that includes three shootout victories and another in overtime.
“That’s an amazing, amazing feat,” Canuck coach Alain Vigneault said. “To win 23 games in a row in such a competitive league at home, it’s remarkable.”
The Canucks often rise for these big games. Their 4- 3 victory over the Bruins on Jan. 7 in the Stanley Cup rematch in Boston won’t easily be eclipsed as the game- of- the- season, but tonight’s summit showdown could do it. Detroit is two points ahead of Vancouver atop the NHL standings.
Mike Booth is elated to see his son, healthy and happy, playing for the Canucks in Detroit.
“I better watch my driving here and make sure I’m not the culprit of my son not playing,” he said. “The Canuck organization has shown their trust and support for him. It really means a lot to a dad to see his son in a starting lineup; David just fits better into this lineup [ than he did in Florida]. He was never the best player on every team, but somehow he is the one who has made it all the way through.”
And, finally, David Booth has made it home for a road game.
“Breaking a home record there for most wins, battling for first place in the league, it’s just going to be a great atmosphere,” he said. “I don’t think you can ask for a better time to play your first game there. Really, I think this is going to be more special than I can imagine.”
DETROIT — Five days before the National Hockey League trading deadline, Byron Bitz returned to the ice Wednesday and insisted his sore hip is unrelated to abdominal problems that jeopardized his career.
Now it’s up to the Vancouver Canucks to believe him.
“It’s probably a worry for them,” Bitz said after practising on his own and with teammates. “But I skated today and felt pretty good, so we’ll just keep moving forward. It’s just a strained hip flexor. You’ve got to give it some time and just let it calm down. Ice a lot and make sure I get the swelling out of there and feel good.
“I’ve felt this before whenever I started skating in the summer. It’s a volume thing. I went from [ not playing at all] to all of a sudden a lot of volume.”
A free- agent acquisition in July, Bitz missed all of last season and nearly two years in total with chronic abdominal problems that required three sports hernia operations. The six- foot- five 27- year- old also had major surgery on his hip to repair a torn labrum and shave bone around the socket.
So the Canucks were understandably concerned when hip soreness forced Bitz to leave the lineup after Saturday’s 6- 2 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs — the 17th game of the winger’s comeback, which started in January with a minor- league assignment in Chicago.
The team needs to know before Monday’s trading deadline whether it’s likely or not that Bitz will be healthy for the rest of the regular season and playoffs.
Vancouver needs the size, toughness and ability Bitz displayed in seven games with the Canucks. The team was 6- 0- 1 in those games and Bitz registered four points, a plus- two rating and 14 penalty minutes.
“In the games he played, he was a factor,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “Every game, whether it was the physicality, whether it was making the right plays at the right time, you were able to notice him. He makes our team bigger. And if he can stay healthy, obviously he will help our team.
“I think it’s normal for any individual who has been out for the number of times and length of time that he has been ... there is going to moments where it is a little bit stiffer and sorer than usual. Hopefully, that’s just what happened here. I think the next couple of days are going to tell us. If he can feel good tomorrow and practise or play, then it was just a minor, little blip that happens to any hockey player. If it happens to be more than that, we’ll have to evaluate it properly.”
After missing games in Edmonton and Nashville, where the Canucks were beaten 3- 1 Tuesday by the Predators, Bitz isn’t expected to play tonight against the Detroit Red Wings. But the Canucks will want to see him in the lineup — starting Friday in New Jersey or Sunday in Dallas — before the trade deadline.
If he isn’t playing by the weekend, it increases the likelihood general manager Mike Gillis will try to trade for additional grit and toughness. Montreal Canadien’s Travis Moen, Dallas Stars’ Steve Ott and Colorado Avalanche’s Cody Mcleod have been linked to the Canucks in trade discussions.
“I’m not really concerned,” Bitz said of his health. “It’s nothing in my hip joint. It’s not a sports hernia. It’s just a sore hip flexor from the amount of volume. I missed a lot of time and now it’s every second day at a high pace. I think it’s kind of par for the course.”
INFECTION ALARM: Winger Chris Higgins was the only Canuck who missed Wednesday’s practice after blocking a Predator shot with his thumb in the third period and requiring stitches to close a small cut. Higgins has twice missed stints this season due to infections and later sat out six games due to side effects from the powerful antibiotics he was taking. Yet, he declared he was fit to play tonight.
“There’s a couple of stitches there, but I’m fine,” Higgins said. “Nothing broken. We’re on top of it and we kind of knew this would be an issue. We’re taking care of it. Maybe before, the little cuts and little openings in the skin, I wasn’t as proactive as I could have been. I don’t think this will be a problem.”