John U. Bacon

Most sports fans are happy just to see their team make the playoffs. But Detroit Red Wings fans have been able to take that for granted for a record 22 straight seasons. The last time the Red Wings didn’t make the playoffs, not one current NHL player was in the league. Some of the current Red Wings weren’t born. Nine current franchises weren’t yet created.

But the record seemed doomed to be broken this season.

To start, there almost wasn’t a season at all, thanks to the contract dispute between the players and the owners, who both thought the other side was making too much money.  And, of course, both sides were right – setting up a game of chicken between self-destructive lunatics.

When a federal mediator finally brought them to their senses in January, they had just enough time left to play a 48-game schedule – which actually seemed about right. But the Red Wings came out flat-footed, falling so far behind they had to win their last four games just to sneak into the seventh of eight playoff spots.

In the first round, they faced the Ducks of Anaheim – formerly the Mighty Ducks – which is already an affront to everything that is holy about hockey.

Amazingly, the Red Wings beat them in seven games – quite an upset. Their reward: an even tougher opponent, the top-seeded Chicago Blackhawks, who earned at least one point in their first 24 games, which is a record.

But for hardcore hockey fans – and really, are there any other kind? – this series was a reward.

The Red Wings and Blackhawks are two of the NHL’s Original Six teams. What are those? Until 1967, the NHL consisted only of Boston and New York, Montreal and Toronto, and Detroit and Chicago. All six have great fans who understand how offsides works, and classic uniforms designed not by Disney focus groups working with computer graphics, but actual human beings working with sewing machines.

Whatever happened between Detroit and Chicago, it was going to be a playoff series to savor. But probably nobody expected the Red Wings to go up three games to one, with three chances to topple the top team in hockey.

And after that start, probably nobody expected the Red Wings to drop games five and six, either, to set up a winner-take-all game seven Wednesday night.

With the score tied, 1-1, the two teams went into a frenzy like no other sport can create. When two baseball teams head to the ninth inning, the game stalls with a parade of relief pitchers and pinch hitters. In football, the players start running out of bounds and intentionally throwing passes into the stands. And in basketball – please don’t get me started here – we get time-outs, intentional fouls, and a free throw contest. The last two minutes can take 20.

But hockey is the only sport that speeds up as the game winds down. And that’s what happened Wednesday night, with the teams battling for their lives. As Willy Wonka said, “The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts.”

When the seventh game of a hockey playoff series goes into overtime, it’s as close to actual “sudden death” as sports can get. When you’re losing by a few goals, you might not like it, but you know what’s coming. But in overtime, there’s no preparing for the sudden ecstasy – or agony.

And that’s why, when Chicago’s Brent Seabrook fired a lucky wrist shot off a Red Wings’ skate and into the net, it unleashed a torrent of endorphins in the heads of a few million Chicago fans – and a flood of equally powerful chemicals, going the other direction, in the brains of Red Wing backers.

But the worst part wasn’t losing. It’s that one of the best series in recent memory was over – and now we have to watch the NBA playoffs.

Or mow our lawns – which is more exciting.

About the writer: Ann Arbor resident John U. Bacon is the author of “Bo’s Lasting Lessons” and “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football” – both national bestsellers. His upcoming book, “Fourth and Long: The Future of College Football,” will be published by Simon & Schuster in September 2013. You can follow him on Twitter (@Johnubacon), and at johnubacon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

In January of this year, various media outlets reported that the 2013 Winter Classic would be held at Michigan Stadium, between the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs. There has not yet been an official announcement from the NHL.

According to a staff memo, the university would be responsible for providing support activities similar to ones provided at Saturday football games. The NHL would have the right to include advertising and sponsorship throughout the stadium, and a liquor license would be obtained for the event. According to the university, Michigan law allows the university to obtain 12 licenses a year.

Six of the eight regents – all but Julia Darlow and Libby Maynard – participated in the meeting via conference call. Regent Denise Ilitch, who chairs the board, recused herself from the vote. She said that although she has no direct relationship to the NHL, it’s well-known that her family has an interest in the Detroit Red Wings and Comerica Park, and she didn’t want the appearance of a conflict.

David Brandon, UM’s athletic director, emphasized that this isn’t a university event, although the university’s game operations crew will manage the event and city police will be used handle security and traffic control. Regent Martin Taylor said he was comfortable with the liquor license, given that it was a third-party event. Regent Larry Deitch confirmed with the legal staff that indemnification and insurance issues were covered.

Several regents praised the deal, which has not yet been finalized but is expected to be signed soon. Regent Andrea Fischer Newman noted that the economic impact for Ann Arbor and surrounding areas will be significant – for hotels, restaurants and other businesses. Ilitch said the estimated impact would be around $14 million.

Taylor also noted that events like this are important as the university looks for ways to increase revenues.

The regents’ Feb. 8 meeting is open to the public and will be held at the boardroom of the Fleming Administration Building, 503 Thompson St. in Ann Arbor.

John U. Bacon

Steve Kampfer grew up in Jackson, and learned to play hockey well enough to earn a scholarship to the University of Michigan. He was a good student and a good player on some very good days, but few expected Kampfer to make it to the NHL. I confess that I was one of them.

What chance he had seemed to vanish on an October night in 2008, when he was leaving a campus bar. He started jawing with another student, who happened to be on the wrestling team. Things got hot, but it was all just talk, until the wrestler picked up Kampfer and turned him upside in a single, sudden move – then dropped him head first on the sidewalk.

Kampfer lay there unconscious, with blood sliding out of his mouth. His stunned friend thought he might be dead.

They rushed Kampfer to the hospital, where they discovered he’d suffered a closed head injury and a severe skull fracture, near his spine. He woke up on a flatboard, his head in a neck brace and tubes running out of his body.

His coach, Red Berenson, talked to him about the possibility – even the likelihood – that he would never play hockey again. The goal was simply to make a full recovery, but they wouldn’t know that for three months.

Kampfer was a student in my class at the time, which met twice a week at 8:30 in the morning – not the most popular hour for college students. Just one week after the incident, at 8:30 Monday morning, Steve Kampfer walked back into my class, wearing a neckbrace. He never discussed the injury. He never made any excuses. He never missed a single class.

But his life was far from normal. I found out just how far only this week, when his mom gave me a paper he had written for another class. In it, he explains how hard it was just to eat, shower, go to the bathroom, or read a book. Nothing was the way it had been – not even sleeping.

Beyond the inconvenience, there was fear. When he looked in the mirror and saw his neck supported by a huge plastic brace, he knew if he turned his neck just an inch, he could be paralyzed forever. Anytime somebody ran toward him, it scared the hell out of him.

After a few weeks, he started going back to the rink – not to skate, but to ride a stationary bike for five minutes a day. Then eight. Then ten. It was the best part of his day, when he would imagine his bones healing, his neck turning, and himself skating again. And on some days, he let himself dream every hockey player’s dream, of raising the Stanley Cup over his head.

After two months, Kampfer started skating again, and got to work building up his legs, and his heart. Instead of becoming gun-shy, he got tougher, and faster. The next year, he had a strong senior season, earned his degree, then reported to the Boston Bruins’ top farm team in Providence, Rhode Island.

I thought that was great, but was as far as he was going to get. But the Bruins called him up in December 2010, and he played very well, before he injured his knee. Boston went on to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in almost four decades, when Number 4, Bobby Orr, was still a young star.

Kampfer had played in 38 games, three short of the 41 required to get your name engraved on the Stanley Cup. But Boston’s general manager petitioned the league, in the hopes of getting Steven Kampfer’s name on the same silver cylinder as Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky and Steve Yzerman. Those legends all have bigger names, of course, but not better stories.

Last week, Steve Kampfer got the Stanley Cup for a day, one of the NHL’s most cherished customs. He could have held his party in Boston or Ann Arbor, but chose to take the greatest trophy in team sports to downtown Jackson, surrounded by his friends and former coaches and teachers.

Naturally, they all wanted to get their picture taken with Kampfer, hoisting the Cup over his head – and that sucker weighs 50 pounds. I saw him do it over a hundred times. I had to remind myself this was the same kid who, not so long ago, couldn’t lift his own head.

After Kampfer’s friends took their last picture, I said, “Hey Steve – you must have gotten a hell of a workout tonight. Are you feeling it?”

“No way,” he said, with a deeply satisfied smile. “This thing never gets heavy.”

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of the upcoming “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football,” due out Oct. 25. You can pre-order the book from Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor or on Amazon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

Hard-core hockey fans – and really, are there any other kind? – are all pumped up this week because on Wednesday night, the Chicago Blackhawks scored in overtime to win their first Stanley Cup since 1961. And that harkens back to the era of the so-called Original Six.

But if you’re not a hard-core fan, you probably don’t know what Original Six means. The Hard-Cores will be quick to tell you the Original Six is code for the first six NHL teams. They’re easy to remember, if you think of them in pairs: New York and Boston, Montreal and Toronto, Detroit and Chicago.

Hockey fans revere the Original Six the way basketball fans gush about the Celtics-Lakers rivalry and classical music buffs go on about Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. The Original Six has become such a popular catch-phrase, it’s now on a baseball cap, featuring all six team logos. It outsells the caps of most individual teams.

I’ve always suspected the Original Six is such a hot catch-phrase because, for the Hard-Cores, it doubles as a secret password. If you know what the Original Six is, you must be Hard-Core. And if you don’t, you ain’t.

The elusive dream of all Hard-Core hockey fans is another Stanley Cup Final between two Original Six teams. That hasn’t happened since in 1973 1979.

That’s why, when the Red Wings got knocked out of the playoffs by the San Jose Sharks, the Hard-Cores figured, Hey, no problem, the Blackhawks will win the West – which they did.

Now all the Hard-Cores needed was an Original Six team to make it through the Eastern Conference, where four Original Six teams play. But the Philadelphia Flyers came from behind to upset the Boston Bruins, and then took out the legendary Montreal Canadiens, too. And that meant just one Original Six team left standing: The Chicago Blackhawks.

It was no small consolation to the Hard-Cores that the Blackhawks beat Philadelphia in overtime Wednesday night, to notch another Stanley Cup for the Original Six this year. But there’s a catch: The Original Six weren’t original, and there weren’t even six of them.

As George Will once wrote, the best cure for nostalgia is a little history.

When the NHL started in 1917, the league had just five teams, including Montreal and Toronto – the Original Two, if you will. But they also had teams like the Quebec Bulldogs, which became the Hamilton Bulldogs, which became … extinct.

All told, in the NHL’s first 25 years, the league launched 12 teams, but had to move four and kill six, including such bottom feeders as the St. Louis Eagles, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Quakers – who, I’m guessing, were not allowed to fight.

Finally, in 1942, the NHL had boiled the league down to what we now call the Original Six. And that’s how it stayed for the next 25 years, until the NHL expanded again in 1967, ultimately building the current 30-team league.

So the next time you hear some Hard-Core fan gushing about the Original Six, you can one-up the poor guy by saying, “Original Six, eh? Pretty cool. But do you know what would be even cooler? If the Original Six were either.”

While your hockey pal is trying to figure out what you just said, you can walk away with the smug satisfaction of knowing you just bested a Hard-Core – and you didn’t even have to buy a hat to do it.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.