8701210632
DETROIT FREE PRESS
870430
Thursday, April 30, 1987
METRO FINAL CHASER
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press
PLANE FACT OF THE MATTER -- WINGS ARE STILL ALIVE
The fans were standing on their feet, screaming, chanting, their hearts
about to pop up through their throats, because the scoreboard was beautiful,
the scoreboard was victory, it read 3-0, no time left, and the Red Wings were
skating off the ice with smiles on their faces and a plane to catch.
Still alive? Still alive.
"HOPE TO SEE YOU BACK HERE SUNDAY NIGHT FOR GAME SEVEN!" the announcer
bellowed.
"AAAAAAHHHH!" answered the crowd.
Game Seven? Did he say Game Seven? Well, all right. Allow him a moment's
fantasy. For this was a night when it all could have ended, right here in
Game 5 this magical hockey season could have been bagged for good, and instead
the Wings skated to a magnificent win, their best of this series. They shut
out the Maple Leafs and forced a return to Toronto in this best-of- seven
second-round playoff. No dreams would die tonight. Not here. Not in Detroit.
"You want to win this thing?" the Wings seemed to say to the Leafs. "Do it
under your flag. Do it in your building." Whack, whack, whack -- three goals
for, no goals against. Pack the bags. Get out the passports.
"How much did facing elimination affect your play tonight?" someone asked
Lee Norwood, who scored Detroit's first goal 6:03 into the first period.
"A lot," he said, "You hate that situation, you hate to be eliminated. You
have to. You have to hate to lose to win a game like this."
Still alive? Still alive.
There have been moments
Perhaps that was it. Hate to lose. Enough to win. The Wings are not the
most talented team in hockey, they don't have the best record in hockey.
They didn't even finish above .500 in the regular season. But there have been
these moments, last night's game, and Game 3 of this series, and that first
game in Chicago Stadium in the opening round, critical games, and they have
responded, they have stayed afloat. "I think," said Steve Yzerman, "we were
simply scared to death to lose."
They avoided such a fate from the very first period Wednesday, when they
swarmed the Toronto goal like locust on crop. They were relentless, constantly
moving, passing, in, out, back, shot, there, there, always there, scraping up
enough ice to build a snow mountain and firing shots at Toronto's Ken Wregget
that smacked of anger, nobody was going to beat them in this building, and so
when the weary puck tried to escape someone in red always brought it back.
Sooner or later this thing had to go in. Sooner or later it did. Norwood
found himself left of the goal by about 45 feet, he wound up, he fired, and
the puck went past a leaping Mel Bridgman and a screened-out Ken Wregget and
-- ooomf! -- straight to the promised land.
Detroit 1, Toronto 0.
Still alive? Still alive.
"You know," said Bridgman. "As bad as that heartbreaking loss was in Game 4
(a 3-2 overtime defeat Monday night in Toronto) we always knew had this game
to go. Tonight we didn't have another game to go. Tomorrow was a question
mark. When that happens, you can forget about the money and the fame. At that
point, you just become little boys. All you want to do is win."
They won by never letting up, by taking two breaths for every one by
Toronto, by falling on pucks, as Norwood did on a shot by Wendell Clark, a
rubber grenade, right in his gut, by getting the best goaltending of the
series by Glen Hanlon. A shut-out? A shut-out.
"I just wanted to win the first period," he said. "Then I just wanted to
win the second, then i just wanted to win, period."
He got all three.
Still alive? Still alive.
Pay now and fly later
So this series goes on. And who knows the ending now. The day before,
Wings coach Jacques Demers was asked to make a decision on a chartered plane
for Wednesday night. If he booked it, the Wings would have to pay no matter
if they lost. If he waited for the outcome, the Wings would have to leave on
Thursday.
"I booked it," he said. "I've been positive all year long, why change now."
The plane was waiting at the Windsor airport at midnight, and this morning
the Wings are in Canada, thinking about one more game.
What will be, will be. But as the fans filed out of Joe Louis Arena last
night, they were basking in the glorious wash of what they knew was
undeniable: No dreams would die tonight. Not in this building.
Still alive? Still alive.
HOCKEY;DREDWINGS;Red Wings