Hockeytown Anymore? Here we are on the eve of Red Wings training camp, and it is arriving quietly — tucked in behind the NFL, college football and the MLB playoff chases. There was a time when this was big news in this city, when "HOCKEYTOWN" was thrown around the media every September and the annual trip north to Traverse City to watch the Wings prepare was a ritual all its own. Hold your horses — no need to book that hotel in Traverse City this year! Camp runs out of Little Caesars Arena instead, the first time in years the Wings will not be going north. Golf clubs on hold. So much for the sunsets and colors of a vacation hot spot at its late-summer best. Our Red Wings enter the 2026 campaign on a 10-season playoff drought, a far cry from the glory days of 25 straight seasons as a mainstay of the April postseason. Which raises the question nobody downtown wants asked: is it time to take "HOCKEYTOWN" off center ice? The days of being anywhere close to that name are long gone. Maybe the honest version reads "Former HOCKEYTOWN?" The Production Line, the Grind Line, the Russian Five — all distant memories for a once-proud Original Six organization. A sold-out Joe Louis Arena, and a team that played like the building's namesake: tough, fight-ready, tenacious, winning the corner battles and dominating the puck with the league-wide confidence to match. Players across the NHL dreamed of pulling on the winged wheel, and the Presidents' Trophy was a yearly conversation for the best record and points in the league. A far cry from those days. Now? A 60-day GM vacancy answered two days before camp with an interim tag — a move that could have been made 60 days ago. You hear it from the fans: season-ticket prices bumped a year ago, absurd for the product in the building. And a new arena in Little Caesars Arena that watched the Pistons make the playoffs in a season everyone expected to belong to the Wings. It's time for this organization to step up and show the importance and desire it carried when Papa Mike Ilitch was in charge, when championships and playoff runs were the expectation and not the memory. Earn the HOCKEYTOWN logo back. Earn the proud history back. Let's Go Red Wings! MI Sports Chat
