Detroit Red Wings Clips August 2-4, 2014

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1 Detroit Red Wings Clips August 2-4, 2014 Detroit Red Wings PAGE 2 Coming soon: Red Wings training camp opens Sept. 19 PAGE 3 Detroit Red Wings conference analysis: Capitals overhaul, aim for playoffs PAGE 4 Red Wings' annual HockeyFest set for Sept. 14 at Joe Louis Arena PAGE 5 How Red Wings have a presence on stage every time Paul McCartney plays 'Yesterday' PAGE 6 Rich Meyers, who developed in-game experience for Grand Rapids Griffins games, heads to the NHL

2 Coming soon: Red Wings training camp opens Sept. 19 August 4, 2014 Detroit Free Press Staff Red Wings tidbits as the off-season enters its final month: The Wings hit the ice Sept. 19 in Traverse City for training camp. Tickets are going fast. Find information at centerice.org. The exhibition season opens Sept. 2 in Pittsburgh. The first of four straight games at the Joe Louis Arena is Sept. 25, against the Chicago Blackhawks. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Wednesday for the Wings annual HockeyFest, 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. Sept. 14 at the Joe. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for 12 and younger. They are available at the Joe Louis Arena box office, through Ticketmaster or at DetroitRedWings.com/HockeyFest. The Ilitch-owned Hockeytown Cafe, across Woodward from Comerica Park, has announced an updated menu featuring 14 new pub-style items to expand its appetizer and entree lineup. The changes include smoked gouda mac and cheese bits, fried pickles, a jalapeno salsa burger, a crispy chicken sandwich and Philly cheese steak pizza. Find the full menu at HockeytownCafe.com. The season opens Oct. 9 against the Boston Detroit Free Press LOADED:

3 Detroit Red Wings conference analysis: Capitals overhaul, aim for playoffs August 3, 2014 By Helene St. James Summer s hockey fix comes through free agency and trades. The Red Wings so far have settled for re-signing their own guys, and as it stands right now, the squad looks a whole lot like last season s group. The Wings overcame severe injuries in to grab the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Having looked at how other teams in the Atlantic Division stack up for next season, let s now take a look at Metropolitan Division teams. Today's analysis: Washington Capitals The Capitals have a new general manager (Brian McLellan), a new coach (longtime Predators man Barry Trotz) and several new players as they embark on another attempt to make good on that Stanley Cup chatter that s echoed around Washington for several years. McLellan nabbed the prize free agent on the market, luring defenseman Matt Niskanen to D.C. with a seven-year, $40.25 million contract (the Wings offered seven years and $38.5 million). That might be a good investment, but Niskanen, 27, has just one great season to his credit and was the gem of the marketplace because the rest was so mundane. The Caps blue line also gets a new face in Brooks Orpik, who followed Niskanen from Pittsburgh to Washington. That deal (five years, $27.5 million) stands as a prime example of how UFA D-men tend to get overpaid, but Trotz has a way of getting the most out of his players. But the Caps defense now boasts those two in addition to offensive-minded Mike Green, John Carlton, Karl Aizner and Dmitry Orlov, a stark improvement over last season. While the back end improved, the front lines suffered the loss of Mikhail Grabovski, leaving a gaping hole behind No. 1 center Nicklas Backstrom. That needs to be addressed if the Caps are to get back into the playoffs and maybe even make some noise, long expected from a team with headlined by Alex Ovechkin. The Capitals missed the cut last spring, leading to significant off-season changes, the best of which might turn out to be Trotz. The Caps aren t a shoo-in playoff team, but they should certainly be in competition for a spot next spring. Detroit Free Press LOADED:

4 Red Wings' annual HockeyFest set for Sept. 14 at Joe Louis Arena The Detroit News The Red Wings annual HockeyFest at Joe Louis Arena will take place on Sunday, Sept. 14 from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Among the features of HockeyFest are interactive games and pick-up hockey stations on the covered ice and around the concourse; tours of the Red Wings locker room; Q&A sessions with players; photo opportunities with the No. 5 Nick Lidstrom banner and the 2008 Stanley Cup banner; and a memorabilia exhibit. Current and former Red Wings will be available for autographs. Tickets for the HockeyFest will go on sale starting at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 6 at the Joe Louis box office ( ), Ticketmaster ( ) or at DetroitRedWings.com. Tickets are $20 (kids 12 and under are $10). Detroit News LOADED:

5 How Red Wings have a presence on stage every time Paul McCartney plays 'Yesterday' Brendan Savage August 01, 2014 It's been said that Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" is the most covered song in music history with as many as 3,000 versions. And every time McCartney plays the song in concert, the Detroit Red Wings have a presence. How so? Well, for almost 40 years now the guitar McCartney uses to play "Yesterday" live has sported a Red Wings sticker. McCartney, who formed the band Wings after leaving the Beatles, was asked about the sticker on the Q&A part of his blog this week and here's how he responded: "We were on a Wings tour quite a while ago and when we played Detroit somebody gave me a Red Wings sticker, which I liked the look of, so I stuck it on my guitar and I have kept it there ever since. It does make it a little awkward when I go to places like Pittsburgh and the Mayor of the town offers me a Penguin sticker to put alongside!" McCartney did indeed put the Penguins sticker on the guitar and it was next to the Red Wings sticker when he played Comerica Park three years ago. There's also a photo at the airport in Nashville aka Music City of McCartney playing the guitar with the Red Wings logo on it. As for the guitar itself, McCartney has said it's the one he used to write "Yesterday" back in the mid-1960s and it was made in Kalamazoo. The concert he received the Red Wings sticker at was reportedly at the old Olympia Stadium in 1976 during his Wings Over America tour. Michigan Live LOADED:

6 Rich Meyers, who developed in-game experience for Grand Rapids Griffins games, heads to the NHL By Peter Wallner GRAND RAPIDS, MI Rich Meyers, who created an award-winning atmosphere for Grand Rapids Griffins games, has a bigger palette to work with this upcoming hockey season. Meyers, a 32-year-old Grand Valley State graduate who served parts of nine seasons with the Griffins, has been named director of game presentation for the Edmonton Oilers. What does that entail? It s wide open, said Meyers, who began the position July 24. There are so many aspects of it, that we still have to determine how it will all work. But with a broad stroke, you re in charge of the show. There is a difference between the pregame and between-period entertainment that takes place in the NHL opposed to the AHL. With the Griffins, you can do pretty much whatever you want within reason, Meyers said. In 18-minute intermissions, we would have contestants off at 12-minute mark, but I d still have people and mascots firing off T-shirts and hot dogs up to the six-minute mark. In the NHL, you have to get them off at the 14-minute mark and it s more about the hockey, the NHL. In the AHL, with the Griffins we were selling more the experience. In Grand Rapids, Meyers oversaw the overall operations of each home game at Van Andel Arena. That took in planning and execution of introductions, videos, giveaways, games and entertainment, to name a few. At the NHL level, you have a lot more resources from what I ve seen, said Meyers, who, for example, has a full-time event crew in Edmonton. With the Griffins I was pretty much hands-on with everything. Here, things from concourse setup to getting ready for promotional activities are handled by an events person. They go off my script, but it is something different. Meyers was good at it in Grand Rapids. The Griffins won the AHL s Western Conference award for fan experience in as well as league honors for most unique game operation promotion or theme night in and Stadium Journey ranked the Griffins as the top minor league hockey experience in 2012 and 6

7 2013, and Gameops.com awarded the team best team operations honors and honorable mention best team introductions in Meyers, who graduated with a degree in hospitality and tourism management, worked his way up through the Griffins, starting in 2005 as a game operations intern. He became a season ticket sales account executive in 2006, later the season ticket sales manager and became director of game operations in The following year he was the Griffins employee of the year. It s not something that was planned or that I aspired to do, Meyers said. I just gravitated to it; it seemed to come relatively easy for me, I liked it and it seemed to be the right fit. He left the team in November, 2013 for a short-lived attempt to be a craft brewer. Doing it all over again, Meyers said, I wouldn't have left the Griffins until I had another position lined up. But at the time it was what I felt I needed to do to have the best chance of getting to the next level. Phil Cronin took over the position in Grand Rapids after 2 1/2 seasons as director of game day operations for the OHL s Saginaw Spirit. Meyers considers himself fortunate to have landed the Edmonton job, albeit the move comes with a wife who is expecting their first child in November and to a team that had the second-worst record in the NHL last season. The good news is attendance was nearly 100 percent to capacity at the 16, 839-seat Rexall Place last season and a new arena is on the way. The Oilers are expected to move into the 18,641-seat Rogers Place, a $606.5-million facility expected to open in the fall of That s going to be special because there are so many things we can do, he said. 7

Detroit Red Wings Clips July 28, 2015

Detroit Red Wings Clips July 28, 2015 Detroit Red Wings PAGE 2 Red Wings notes: TV slots, Jurco quotes, Hockeyfest PAGE 4 Mitch Callahan says he'll be ready for Red Wings camp, but not a return to AHL