By DAVID N. GOODMAN, Associated Press Writer
December 31, 2004
DETROIT (AP) -- There's a hole in the heart of Hockeytown.

Joe Louis Arena was dark and empty New Year's Eve. It's the place where thousands traditionally begin their night of revelry with a pre-holiday Detroit Red Wings game.

And with no sign of progress toward a deal to end the NHL lockout, fans and the sports bars and other businesses that serve them are left remembering the excitement of seasons past and hoping for a future with pro hockey in it.



``You can't sit there and cry. There'll be hockey next year,'' said Nemo's Bar co-owner Tim Springstead. ``The outlook for this year? There is no outlook.''

Pro sports have been a bright spot in a sometimes bleak city, where a shrinking and increasingly impoverished population of 911,000 is surrounded by a ring of more affluent suburbs in a metropolitan area of 4.5 million.

Detroit's downtown has seen a marked economic revival the past few years, sparked in part by the opening of state-of-the-art venues for baseball's Detroit Tigers (Comerica Park, 2000) and the NFL's Detroit Lions (Ford Field, 2002).

The opening of new corporate headquarters (General Motors Corp. in 1996 and Compuware Corp. in 2003), casinos, stores, theaters and restaurants have helped inject new life as well.

But even when times were bad, life pulsed at the perpetually sold-out Joe Louis Arena, home ice for the winner of three of the last eight Stanley Cup championships. If there were hockey this season, the Red Wings would have been home Friday against the Vancouver Canucks.

In 1982, the new owner of Andrews on the Corner got the idea to run game-night shuttle buses from his bar to the arena. The 1 1/2 -mile service drew 200-250 riders on an average game night, peaking at 500 during the championships, said owner Tom Woolsey. He runs similar service to Lions games.

Now, the buses sit idle, as do many others who depend on the Wings games for their livelihood.

``It's a big part of the business,'' Woolsey said. ``I have employees, and their hours have been cut back because we don't have the business.''

With no games, many fans have turned to the sport of labor relations, following the on-and-off contract talks between owners seeking ``cost certainty'' and the NHL Players Association determined to resist. No new talks have been scheduled since bargainers last met Dec. 14. The NHL board of governors plans to meet Jan. 14.

``Customers are constantly asking me if there is going to be hockey,'' Woolsey said.

Others say the dispute between millionaire players and multimillionaire owners has soured them on the sport entirely.

``To be honest, I don't care,'' said former amateur hockey coach Robert Schafran of Detroit, nursing a drink in one of Andrews' wooden booths opposite Kathryn Pilot of Grosse Pointe Woods.

Those with an urge to see the ice on New Year's Eve had another option -- lace up their own skates, said Carolyn Artman of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau. The newly opened outdoor rink at downtown Campus Martius was to be open until midnight.

``It's skating, even if it's not hockey,'' Artman said.

It's been very dark and quiet in Detroit without the Wings playing.

applekisses said:

althom said:

SHUT UP!

CanvasBeauty said:

althom said:

there are about 10 hours of programming on the weekend here where they had to think of something else to broadcast.

instead of hockey night in canada now we have movie night in canada... where they play movies everyone has already seen

bring back hockey!!!