The first outdoor game of the Wings Network was in a prison

On Saturday, the Detroit Red Wings will play in the 43rd Outdoor Game of the NHL, the stadium series at the Ohio stadium in Columbus against the Blue Jackets (6 PM et in ESPN, ESPN+ and Disney+). Seventy -one years ago, they played in what is believed to be the first outdoor game … in a prison.

In June 1953, the general manager of Wings, Jack Adams, and the captain of the Ted Lindsay team, who have NHL trophies that bear their name, made a promotional tour of Michigan. One of the stops was Marquette’s state prison, a maximum security center nicknamed the “Alcatraz del Norte”. While they were there, the guardian, Emery Jacques, repeatedly asked Adams to bring his team to prison to play against his inmates, who called themselves “the pirates.” After some round trip, Adams said that if Jacques could provide funds for transport, accommodation and food, he would return with his team.

Jacques called Adams’ Bluff and did everything ordered. And so, in the middle of the 1954 season, the Wings Red were faithful to their word and went to prison to play a hockey game against the inmates.

It was said that it was a fast 22 degrees. The official score was not maintained, but with people like Gordie Howe, Terry Sawchuck and Lindsay in the ice, for some accounts it was a first quite unequal period. The teams made “exchanges” and played the rest of the game, with goalkeeper Sawchuck attending the network against Detroit. Sid Abel and Alex Delvecchio also changed the shirts. An inmate received the emotion of his life, focusing Howe and Lindsay.

Howe recalled a particular moment that made him laugh: “I said around his goalkeeper, I put on the other side and his defense laughed,” Howe said after the game. “The goalkeeper tells him: ‘I will kill you, bastard’.”

The ICE at The Prison was created by the Atlético de Marquette director, Leonard “Oakie” Brumm, who played for Michigan, winning the inaugural National Ice Ice Hockey Championship of the NCAA in 1948. At that time, Marquette was the only criminal institution in the nation with an organized team of hockey “Varsity” or a rin of hockey regulation.

There are different reports of the final score, as revealing as 5-2 and a more realistic 9-0 and 18-0. After the game, the wings received the Doniker trophy, also known as Honey Bucket.

The teams said goodbye and the Wings network resumed their season. Two months after lifting the honey cube, Detroit won his sixth Stanley Cup. Could your outdoor game this year give the same type of playoff fortune?