Red Wings' Finale At Olympia Something To Shout About

It’s long gone now, some sort of armory building in its place, at the corner of Grand River and McGraw on Detroit’s west side. A whole generation now has come along, and they certainly have never experienced it in person, and probably are barely aware of it, even in mythology. Today’s Red Wings fans, those Hockeytown Wing Nuts, sometimes think nothing happened of any real importance before they were born.

But I want to let you know that today’s date, December 15, was the day the Red Wings played their last game at the Old Red Barn -- Olympia Stadium, back in 1979. And I was there.


Olympia Stadium


My friend Bob Davis and I had sat in the stadium’s parking lot all that Saturday morning waiting to buy tickets to a future game in this new place called Joe Louis Arena, on the riverfront. Never did we think any tickets would actually remain for that evening’s game -- the grand finale after over 50 years of Red Wings occupancy. But when we finally got to the box office, I decided to ask anyway.

"You wouldn’t have any tickets left for tonight, would you?," I said with little optimism.

"We have two left," the person behind the bulletproof glass told me. I scarcely could believe my ears.

So we left -- after buying tickets to a game in February against the Flyers -- and came back for that evening’s contest, which just so happened to have been not only historic, but one of the most exciting games played in a decade when the Red Wings were not so much.

The opponent was the Quebec Nordiques, one of four teams that joined the NHL that October after surviving the World Hockey Association. Le Nordique was coached, in a tad of irony, by a future friend of Hockeytown, Jacques Demers.

Anyhow, the Nordiques jumped on the Red Wings and by the midway point of the second period, Quebec had a 4-0 lead. It seemed insurmountable, because the hockey entry in Detroit back in those days wasn’t known for anything other than losing. It looked like they would be booed out of Olympia and into their new arena.
But then the Red Wings scored, toward the end of the second period, and there was finally something to cheer about. We were sitting in one of the corners, somewhere in the balcony. Then early in the third period, another goal and the Nordiques now led 4-2. Hope fluttered its heartbeat and Olympia Stadium came alive.

From that point on, for almost the entire third period, the Red Wings dominated play, peppering the Quebec netminder and you could sense that this was going to be no ordinary game, on an extraordinary night. Sure enough, the Red Wings scored again, making it 4-3. The Red Barn was rocking and it was LOUD. I have been to three different crazy loud games: the ’79 finale at Olympia, the ’84 Pistons playoff game at Joe Louis Arena against the Knicks (when Isiah Thomas scored 16 points in 90 seconds), and Game 3 of the NBA Finals in 2004 at the Palace. I couldn’t really place one over the other in terms of decibels. Suffice it to say I’d put any one of those shrieking crowds against anything you could come up with.

Then, with just over three minutes to play, Red Wings defenseman Greg Joly took the puck behind his own goal. Slowly he started, a one-man rush up ice. Met with no resistance until his own blue line, Joly picked up some steam. He was one of the few Red Wings defensemen who had some wheels. He had to start deking Nordiques around center ice. Before you knew it, Joly was in the Quebec end, the puck on his stick as if it had been taped there. He went to his right, toward the boards, then brought the puck beck toward the middle of the ice. There was one more defenseman to beat. Joly put the puck between that poor player’s legs, and just like that he was in all alone on the Quebec netminder. One more deke, and the puck was flipped over the sprawled goalie.

Well, my goodness, you would have thought the Red Wings had captured the Stanley Cup. I wasn’t at the Joe when the Cup was won for real in ’97 or ‘02, but I will tell you that no way was JLA louder than when Joly scored the game-tying goal on December 15, 1979, at Olympia Stadium. The rafters shook and the metal and concrete quaked and for a moment I honestly thought the entire building would come down, right then and there, saving the city an implosion fee.

This was long before regular season overtime, so when the horn blew a few minutes after Joly’s goal, the game was over. No extra session. Certainly no shootout. Just a 4-4 tie. Remember tie games?
The fans stood and roared as the Red Wings skated off the ice, having given the faithful one last reason to scream, in an era filled with mostly boos. After the game, Bob and I hung around and were rewarded when just about all the players came out of the dressing room, smoking cigars and wearing topcoats. We got tons of autographs. I also saw someone trying to steal an entire row of chairs. No joke.

The Red Wings played their first game at Joe Louis Arena on December 27, 1979, against the St. Louis Blues. They lost. Back to the 70’s norm, you know.