Fischer was an up and coming defenseman. He was young, he was good looking, he was big, and he was tough. Before Zetterberg came along, I had every intention of buying myself a #8 Jiri Fischer jersey (he switched from #2 to #8 after Larionov retired and Hatcher stole the deuce). Then it happened. My buddy was there, I remember watching in horror on TV. We don’t need to go into details, you know what happened, and if you don’t... shame on you.
I had known that the Wings offered him a job. Much like they did to Stevie-Y, Larry Murphy, and some washed-up goalie named Kenneth Holland.
In fact, a funny thing occurred last year when I went to pick up my Winter Classic tickets at Joe Louis Arena. I got them through my buddy who works security for the Wings so I had to pick them up beyond some security checkpoints in the lower levels of JLA. I found myself standing in a small room waiting for them to find my tickets when an unusually tall and then figured stepped into the room. Immediately, I recognized that it was Fischer, picking up tickets for some of his friends. “Hey!” I said, unable to control my excitement at the time, my voice had a tone of recognition, which obviously confused Jiri since he had never even seen me before. He smiled and gave me a friendly “Hi,” before I shrank into a corner embarrassed by my blurting.
Ok, well it was funny at the time, jerks.
The point is, if you want a model franchise, don’t listen to what Lil Gary tells you…it’s not Pittsburgh, it’s Detroit. Look at the way they treat their employees and alumni. Look at how Mike Illitch sent SC Championship rings to all the old Red Wings who never got one. Look at what is engraved on the inside of every one of those rings, a single word: FAMILY.
Just ask this guy.
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