Detroit Red Wings PART 7

During another trip to visit Patty’s family in Detroit, we attended a Red Wings game at Joe Louis arena. It was my mother’s first and only hockey game. She was quite shocked at the things yelled by the fans toward their own Bob Probert. The left winger was know for being an enforcer/fighter leading the league in penalties in minutes with 398 in 1987-88 season. Off the ice he was known for his arrests and legal problems with drinking, drugs, etc.

In Detroit, when leaving the arena after the game, fans pass through elevated walkways to the frozen parking garages - “mooing” like cattle.

During the 1988-89 season we traveled to Bloomington Minnesota to see the L.A. Kings with Wayne Gretzky play the Minnesota North Stars at the MetCenter.



Luc Robitaille and Wayne Gretzky



The 1989 Stanley Cup Final was between the Calgary Flames and the Montreal Canadiens, the top two teams during the 1988–89 NHL regular season. Calgary won.

During the early summer of 1989, during Don’s Windsurfing vacation at Hood River on the Columbia River Gorge in Washington state, (I was about 6 months pregnant) we traveled to Canada. We visited Calgary and Edmonton. Being summertime, there were no hockey games, but we saw the Calgary Saddledome and Edmonton’s Northlands Coliseum hockey arenas. And of course, the West Edmonton Mall, the largest shopping mall in North America.

Ann is born!          Ann’s first hockey game in St. Louis, fall of 1989.

I have a video clip of me reading the Hockey Digest to Ann at about 6 months of age.

1990 - 1998 We continued to follow hockey on TV, and trips to St. Louis.

We attended a minor league game in Ft. Wayne while visiting Don‘s sister Jean‘s family. At that time a member of the International Hockey League.

We also occasionally saw games at Kemper arena in Kansas City.

The Kansas City Blades of the IHL played from 1990 to 2001.

In the 1990 Stanley Cup Final, the Edmonton Oilers defeated the Boston Bruins four games to one. For the Oilers, it was their fifth Cup win in seven years, and the only one without Wayne Gretzky.


The 1991 Stanley Cup Final NHL championship series was contested by the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Minnesota North Stars. It was the Penguins' first Final series appearance and their first Stanley Cup victory.

In September of 1991 we traveled to Quebec and saw a Nordique game at the Colisee de Québec. Ann loved to say Bonjour on this trip. (a French word meaning "Good Day" or "Hello")