The Franchise: Detroit Red Wings: A Curated History of Hockeytown

by Helene St. James

"A bible for Red Wings fans." — Mitch AlbomIn The Detroit Red Wings, take a more profound and unique journey into the history of an iconic team. This thoughtful and engaging collection of essays captures the astute fans' history of the franchise, going beyond well-worn narratives of yesteryear to uncover the less-discussed moments, decisions, people, and settings that fostered the team's iconic identity. Through wheeling and dealing, mythmaking and community building, explore where the organization has been, how it got to prominence in the modern NHL landscape, and how it'll continue to evolve and stay in contention for generations to come.Red Wings fans in the know will enjoy this personal, local, in-depth look at hockey history.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published October 29, 2024

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a Detroit Red Wings' fan since January 30, 1956, so found this book interesting, especially when talking about the players whose names are so familiar to me. The book is divided into various topics like the rivalries with other teams, the influence of women (Marguerite Norris, Marion Ilitch, Colleen Howe), the three arenas associated with the team over the years. There are many statistics. Unfortunately, there are also glaring errors like the "state" of Saskatchewan, the province of "Ottawa". Lots of other errors sprinkled throughout the book that a proofreader should have easily caught. Perhaps those will be rectified before the book comes out as a paperback.

[Daniel Huber · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m a big Redwings fan and liked learning more of the history of the franchise. The writing structure of the book made it hard to read at times and there was a lot of repetition throughout.

[Brent Darling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a few errors in the book, which is surprising, considering the author is the Red Wings beat writer for the Detroit Free Press.