After waking up at five o'clock in the morning and driving three hours to the middle of nowhere Michigan, I finally got to witness a Detroit Red Wings' Training Camp.
Photo credits to Val.
I have been to the Chicago Blackhawks' training camp last year and seeing the difference in them was pretty good and noticing that the Wings had a way better camp compared to theirs which is honestly no lie. For the Hawks, they did their scrimmages which I do like and thats mostly it, but after that they had practice which people had to watch from a different window and could not go into that part of the rink and waiting for the players afterwards and that was a complete nightmare because the space was held right in front of the buses and barely fit more then 20 people against the gate. But with the Wings, they held two other practices as well as this one where people can actually watch them do their drills and hear what Blashill has to say to them and how they are preparing for the season. Another thing I loved was how meeting the players was set up, but I will talk about that later.
The way they had the practice set up is they set up all the players in different teams and one team practiced at a certain time at one side of the rink and in a different rink within the arena the other team practiced right after them. It was different to see them at practice compared to watching them at a game because there it is a somewhat more relaxed environment and seeing them do different drills starting out with goalies working together, and then the forwards worked with just forwards and the defensemen did the same thing and slowly throughout practice they would start to combine everyone into their drills to a little scrimmage with each others by the end of their practice. After the practices, they held speed drills, but personally my friends and I left to go outside and get a spot to meet the players.
After experiencing the mess at the Hawks' training camp, I thought it would be similar, but it was ten times better. The gates wrapped around the parking lot where the players parked and the players would walk to every single person standing by the gate. They stopped for everyone by signing their hats or posters and even stopped for pictures and I honestly thought that was the best thing in the world because last year, two players literally walked out signed five things and left. Some of the players that came out to sign were Steve Ott (who is surprisingly not that big than I thought), Jimmy Howard, Mike Green, Jonathan Ericsson, Dan Cleary, Gustav Nyquist, Anthony Mantha, etc. and even though Darren Helm did not sign I honestly still had the best day. And one of the weird things was that my friends and I were pretty much the only teenagers there without parents and everyone was older as well. One of my favorite parts was when we were meeting Ericsson, we kept making jokes about my one friend who is a died hard Blackhawks fan and kept telling every player that walked up to us and Ericsson said, "If you're a Chicago fan, why don't you go to their training camp instead?" in the most sassy way and I honestly could not stop laughing. Another one, was when Mantha tried to hold a conversation with us, but we felt bad because there was still a whole gate full of people behind us waiting for autographs and he just wanted to talk.
Since my pictures with the players were ugly, here is a nice picture of Mike Green.
After attending the camp, I cannot wait to go next year because one you get a lot of chances to meet different players and see the practice since they do not hold open practices anyways. Secondly, the tickets were only $15 which was completely worth it and highly recommending going to it because it will never be a disappointment.
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