Three Years Ago: Reminiscing The Detroit Red Wings’ 12th Annual Toast Of Hockeytown
In November 2011, my brothers and I dressed up in our fanciest clothes and headed downtown for an evening of wine-tasting and hockey-player-meeting, mostly the latter. I was finally of legal drinking age for us to attend. Our goal for the evening? Meet Nicklas Lidstrom. Who knew when he was going to retire? We didn’t plan on blowing our chance.
What came was one of the best nights of my life surrounded by the team I have loved for years and years.
I did not know what to expect. Before this night, I never had a chance to really converse with any hockey players except Brett Lebda (who doesn’t count, let’s be honest) and Brian Rafalski. Being able to see almost the entire team in one night was too much for my brain to process. So I went in, trying not to freak out too much.
There are things we learned about the players that night that have become running jokes in my family. Like Darren Helm saying that shaving is on his to-do list because he’s lazy and doesn’t have time. Or Ian White not enjoying the twenty minute drive down to the Joe when he used to be able to walk there back in San Jose. Ty Conklin looked like Luigi from the Super Mario Brothers, and I asked him when he was going to be asked to play in the next Winter Classic (since he had played in all of them up to that point). He cracked up at that one.
I asked every player what their favorite arena is besides Joe Louis Arena. Most of the younger guys said the United Center in Chicago because the Original Six Atmosphere. Pavel Datsyuk prefers the older arenas. “Old Pittsburgh–Mellon. New arenas, everything too far away, too bright,” he said. We asked Drew Miller what was going on with Ryan Miller over in Buffalo (he was having a terrible year) and he couldn’t give us any answers, not that we expected him to. Patrick Eaves was happy to hear we loved him on every other team he played for as well, we don’t just love him because he was on the Red Wings.
I got to bond with my namesake, Johan Franzen, who I showed the “Franzenmuth” picture to and had him sign the previous year at the season ticket holder open house. He told me he loves to play in Colorado–and why wouldn’t he? He scored more goals there in one playoff round than the Colorado Avalanche did! My brother also told him to check out Frankenmuth sometime soon because he said he has never been. Henrik Zetterberg did not wear a ZetterSweater, but he did have what we dubbed a “HandleHank Zetterstache.”
Pavel Datsyuk, when asked by us if he thought Lidstrom was on pace to win another Norris Trophy that year, chuckled and said, “He should have retired six or seven years ago.” As if he was the worst player on the team. Niklas Kronwall was the most fun player to talk to. My older brother asked him where he got his glasses. “Polo Ralph Lauren!” he told us. “But it wasn’t anywhere in Detroit. And I had Lasik before this season, so I don’t even need them anymore.”
“So my neighbors set up an ice rink in their back yard every winter,” I told him.
“That’s so cool!” Kronwall said.
“I know! And every year when we clean it off, we shovel most of the snow to one side of the rink where it piles up into a giant wall so we can check people. And we named it after you,” I said. “It’s the KronWall of Check.”
“No way, seriously?! That’s so cool!” He was hopelessly excited for it.
And then there was the moment of the evening: Nicklas Lidstrom. The longest line to wait in, and rightly so. The three of us went up separately, and I remember just being so happy to say hello and ask how the evening was going. “So aside from Joe Louis Arena, where is your favorite place to play?” I asked.
Nicklas Lidstrom & Christina Roberts at the Toast of Hockeytown, November 2011. Picture taken by Mike Roberts
“Oh, the Shark Tank!” Lidstrom replies immediately with a little chuckle. “The atmosphere there is great.”
The only person we missed was Brad Stuart, which I still regret to this day. We saw him at one point with no one around him, no one waiting in line, but he was stuffing his face with food and we figured it was best to let him have his moment of peace to eat.
It was an evening of magical proportions, beat only by my dozens of trips to Disney World (though Tomas Holmstrom saying I called him old was pretty magical, too). If you ever have the chance to attend a Toast of Hockeytown, I say go for it.
You won’t regret it.