Fan Petition to Keep the Joe Louis Name on the new Arena
Petitioning Ilitch Holdings: Another Joe Louis Arena | Change.org
If you’ve ever signed a petition on Change.org and then have spent the next several months casually deleting spam from them, you know the drill: Somebody puts up a petition with a goal for signatures and then invites people to sign it, hoping to create the change (dot org) they wish for. Here’s the gist of this one:
There is no better way to remember the meaning of Joe Louis than by naming the next Detroit Red Wings arena in his honor. Please join me in respectfully asking Illitch Holdings to look beyond the financial gain of corporate sponsorship and further the legacy of the legendary Joe Louis.
I’m not going to tell you not to sign this because the author makes some good points and I honestly do think it’s cool that the Wings don’t play in DonkeyTaco.biz Arena or whatever, but let’s be realistic with what you’re asking for here.
Dear hockey business which is cutting your arena size by 2,000 seats to accommodate more luxury boxes: please forego the naming rights game because a bunch of us got together and signed a free petition to ask you nicely.
I’m just saying that unless we’re asking the 100,000 people who would sign this petition to also pony up $40 apiece per year to keep it from happening, it’s not happening. Arena naming rights are worth too much to give up for free. You get enough signatures and they’ll name SOMETHING after Joe Louis just to appease the crowd, but make no mistake about whether or not Ram Truck intermissions that break up Belle Tire Power Plays will take place inside a barn without a corporate name on it.
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Re-Living the Fischer Incident
I was watching the Predators/Senators game and trying not to feel too dirty about rooting for Nashville (hey at least Eaves is there). Then I caught somebody on Twitter asking what’s going on in Dallas, then another. By the time the third odd Dallas-related tweet rolled in, I switched over to see for myself what was up.
The arena was completely silent. The players were all standing around in shock. The Stars‘ announcing crew wasn’t saying a word. Shit had gone down and it wasn’t good.
Shortly after, I learned that Rich Peverley had collapsed on the bench and had been pulled off for some sort of emergency care. That was all it took to flood back to 2005 and the Jiri Fischer incident. My mind raced through the possibilities and quickly dragged up all the terror from eight seasons ago. At one point, I hoped the outcome would be at least as good as what happened with Fischer because I couldn’t shake the memory of Alexei Cherapanov, the Rangers draft pick who collapsed on the bench in a KHL game and died in 2012. Fischer had his career ripped away from him too soon, but he was able to leave the game with his life intact.
Cotsonika does a wonderful job discussing how things went with Fischer and the night his life changed. I highly recommend reading the article.
Also, for what it’s worth, I can say enough how well Darryl Reaugh and Ralph Strangis covered the events live as they unfolded. When there wasn’t much to say or report, they didn’t force it. Both men let the silence of the arena do all the talking necessary. They didn’t jump to speculation, they didn’t try to fill time with idle chatter, and they calmly reported updates as they came in. This really was an excellent job by the Fox Sports Southwest crew.
