John U. Bacon

Because my last 700-word commentary completely covered every subject in the sports world that occurred in 2013, my editor thought, “Hey, why not preview the year in sports in January?!”

Why not? Because I have no idea what’s going to happen, that’s why. Nobody does. That’s why we watch sports: We don’t know how it’s going to end. It’s also why we shouldn’t watch pregame shows: everybody is just guessing.

Nonetheless, if The Chronicle wants to pay me to make wild, unsupported guesses – then doggonnit, that’s what I’ll do. Just one of the many duties that come with being a hard-hitting investigative journalist.

Let’s start at the bottom. That means, of course, the Detroit Lions.

The Lions finished yet another season by missing the playoffs, and firing their coach. If you’re surprised by any of this, you have not been paying the slightest attention, and probably don’t know that the football is the one with pointy ends.

In my lifetime, the Lions have won exactly one playoff game – and I am no spring chicken. At this rate, if I want to see the Lions win the Super Bowl, I’ll have to live… several lifetimes.

In 1997, I wrote: “The Lions’ four decades of mediocrity beg more fundamental questions. Why did [the Lions] pick Wayne Fontes in the first place? Why have they been so patient with him? And why are the Lions so attracted to nice guys who finish third?”

Seventeen years, seven head coaches, and zero playoff wins later, we are asking the same questions. First wild guess: 17 years from now, we’ll be asking the same ones.

Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo has gotten the Spartans into the NCAA tournament every year, for 16 straight years. He once told me, as a joke, that maybe they should miss the tournament one year, just to remind their fans it’s not a birthright. Maybe, but not this year. The Spartans are 15-1, ranked fourth, and flying high.

Izzo has won seven Big Ten titles, been to five Final Fours and won the national title in 2000. But I’ve often said his best season of coaching was 2010, when they lost two-time Big Ten player of the year Kalin Lucas, and got to the Final Four without him.

By that measure, this could be Michigan head coach John Beilein’s best season, too. Last year they got to the NCAA finals for the first time since the Fab Five. They were expected to do big things this year, too. But then star center Mitch McGary had to bow out for back surgery. It was a colossal blow – to which the Wolverines have responded by winning six straight games, including their first four Big Ten contests. Do not count them out.

That brings us to the Detroit Pistons, for some reason. The Pistons made the playoffs for eight straight years until their owner, Bill Davidson, passed away in 2009. They haven’t made it back since,  and they won’t this year.

The Red Wings, in contrast, are extremely well run, and proved it by making the playoffs every season since 1990 – a record that spans longer than the lifetimes of some of their players. Another wild guess: their streak will not be broken this spring, either.

The Tigers are in for an interesting year. After Jim Leyland retired, they hired Brad Ausmus to manage the team. Ausmus, a Dartmouth grad, might be the smartest, best looking manager the game has ever seen. And that will carry him right up to… opening day.

In college football, the questions are simple: Are the Spartans really all that? And when will the Wolverines return to being all that?

The Spartans went 13-1 last season, beating Michigan and Ohio State to win the Big Ten title, then followed up with a Rose Bowl win over Stanford – all with players those schools didn’t want. Can they do it again, and prove it was no fluke?

At Michigan, the Wolverines are trying to prove that the last decade was a fluke, and they still belong among the nation’s elite teams. The big story this month was not a big bowl win or a big recruit, but the firing of an offensive coordinator, and the hiring of a new one. Good move.

I’ve never seen a fan base so excited over the hiring of an offensive coordinator. And I’ve never seen that excitement so justified.

Will Michigan’s offense be better than last year’s? Well, as my dad so often told me as a kid, when you’re on the floor, you can’t fall out of bed. The best date on the schedule next year might be October 25, when the Wolverines travel to East Lansing to face the Spartans.

Be sure to tune in 11 months from now, when I will publicly deny making any one of these predictions.

About the writer: Ann Arbor resident John U. Bacon is the author of the national bestsellers “Fourth and Long: The Future of College Football,” “Bo’s Lasting Lessons” and “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” 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!

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!

John U. Bacon

The Red Wings bowed out of the Stanley Cup playoffs Saturday, in just the second round. It was disappointing for Red Wings’ fans – okay, crushing.

But it’s worth remembering the Red Wings have made the playoffs for 20 consecutive years – the longest active run of any team not just in hockey, but in baseball, basketball and football. The last time the Red Wings didn’t make the playoffs, George Bush was just getting started – George H.W. Bush, that is.

That 1990 team was decent, but nobody thought it would spark a streak of 20 straight playoff seasons. To do that, the Red Wings have stayed at the top of their game with four different coaches, 25 goalies and hundreds of players. Not one has spanned the entire streak. But the team has been led during the entire stretch by just two captains: Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom – and no team has ever had better leaders than those two.

Detroit was a playoff team when the Edmonton Oilers’ wide-open offense ruled the game. They made the playoffs when the New Jersey Devils’ oh-so-boring defense dominated. But then the Red Wings developed a style of their own: a wonderful hybrid of hardcore North American hitting, and European-style skating and passing. They can play with anyone, any way you like – and they’ll beat you doing it.

The Wings were on top 10 years ago when the referees didn’t call anything – like clutching, grabbing, and hooking – and they’ve stayed on top after the refs started calling everything, like coughing and sneezing.

The Wings’ streak survived the lockout of 1995 and the lockout of 2005, and they didn’t miss a beat.

The Wings won three Stanley Cups before the salary cap was put in place five years ago. Everyone said would be the end of their dynasty, until they won another Cup in 2008, with not a dime more than everyone else had.

The Wings play in the NHL’s Western Conference, despite the fact that Joe Louis Arena is a few miles east of the Piston’s home, and they play in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. Go figure.

No team in the four major sports has traveled more than the Red Wings have over the past 20 years. They’ve had to play conference rivals in Dallas and Denver, Edmonton and Anaheim, Phoenix and Vancouver. They don’t complain about it. They just win, get on the plane, and go do it again.

The Red Wings have done all of this with zero – zero – off-ice scandals. They’ve played through the Minnesota Vikings’ sex boat escapades, Pete Rose and Mark McGwire’s “confessions,” Ben Roethlisberger and Lawrence Taylor and Tiger Woods. They’ve earned a reputation for being genuinely good guys. They even take pay cuts to keep their teammates on board.

In his autobiography, comedian Steve Martin said the hardest thing to learn was not how to be great. On a given night, almost any comedian can do that. No, the hardest thing, he said, was to learn to be good, night after night, no matter what they throw at you.

The Red Wings have not only been good, night after night, they’ve been great. And they’ve been doing it for almost 2,000 nights. They are the honest accountants, the loyal employees – the guys who do their jobs so well for so long, you barely notice.

Well, hockey fans, you should. Because teams don’t come along like this – ever.

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.

John U. Bacon

When the Red Wings drafted Steve Yzerman in 1983, he was 18 years old, but he looked even younger – less a Boy Scout, than a Cub Scout.

But his baby face didn’t prevent him from notching a stellar 91 points his rookie season. Two years later, the coach named him team captain – the youngest in the Red Wings’ history – though he hadn’t really earned it yet.

Oh, he could score. In his twenties, Yzerman rattled off six seasons of 100 points or more – including 155 points in 1988-89. In the history of the game, only two players have ever surpassed that mark: Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. Not bad company.

Scoring will get you individual honors – that year, Yzerman’s opponents named him the league’s most outstanding player – but it won’t get your name engraved on the Stanley Cup. For that, a team’s best players have to do all the grimy little chores that don’t show up on a score sheet, only the win column – like playing defense. But defense was not Yzerman’s thing, and that’s why the Red Wings usually had good teams, but never great ones.

That all changed in 1993, when Scotty Bowman became the Red Wings’ head coach. Bowman had a remarkable record for coaching winners: He’d taken teams in St. Louis, Montreal and Pittsburgh to the Stanley Cup finals nine times, and won the Cup six times.

But Detroit hadn’t won the grail since Gordie Howe ruled the rink, almost four decades earlier. Bowman had his work cut out for him.

Bowman also arrived with a well-earned reputation for inscrutability. The legendary coach was so enigmatic, some reporters took to calling him, “Rainman.” But there was method to his madness: his headgames kept everybody on edge, which usually brought out their best.

No sooner had Bowman settled in Detroit than he started speculation that he was willing to trade the team’s star center. This shocking news sent ripples through the locker room, the city and even the state.

Bowman ultimately backed off, but Yzerman got the message. He started doing all those things that don’t win headlines, just games – like backchecking, grinding, and blocking shots. This shift in priorities cut his scoring in half – but doubled his value to the team.

He became a complete player – and a complete leader. He didn’t say much in the locker room, but when he did, everybody listened. And whenever new players wondered what it took to be a Red Wing, all they had to do was watch the 38-year old captain, one of the most skilled players in the league, take a knee to block a shot.

His younger teammate Kirk Maltby said, “When you see him blocking shots night after night, you can’t help but do the same yourself. Given all the things he’s gone through, you can’t ask for a better motivation to win the Cup.”

And those are just a few of the reasons why Yzerman’s name is engraved on the Stanley Cup, three times. That’s why his jersey is one of only six that hangs from the rafters at Joe Louis Arena. And that’s why he walked into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

You can call him an All-Star. A Stanley Cup champion. A Hall of Famer. But the most appropriate title is one he received early in his career, but grew into over two decades: Captain.

No one in league history has served longer – and no one did it better.

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 of 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.