1 By the early 1960s, the NHL wanted to phase out the sponsorship of junior teams by its six clubs. NHL teams sponsored amateur teams and players, preempting other NHL clubs from acquiring new talent and limiting amateur players’ hopes of making it in the NHL to the team that sponsored them.
League president Clarence Campbell wanted to move toward what he called “a uniform opportunity for each team to acquire a star player.” With that in mind, the NHL held its first amateur draft on June 5, 1963, at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.
It wasn’t like today’s draft, which includes players from around the world, some of whom are already playing professional hockey. Eligibility for this draft was limited to amateur players who would reach 17 years of age between August 1, 1963, and July 31, 1964, and teams were not permitted to talk to the drafted players about turning pro until they turned 18. At that point, the teams had 72 hours to get the players signed or placed on their negotiation list. Players already on sponsorship lists were ineligible. That meant few top prospects would be available during the four rounds, because most of the top junior players were already controlled by NHL clubs through their junior teams.
The Montreal Canadiens wound up with the first pick and selected Garry Monahan, a center from the St. Michael’s Buzzers of the Metro Junior B League in Toronto. Monahan went on to play 748 NHL games with five teams, including the Red Wings.
Detroit had the second pick and selected a teammate of Monahan, Peter Mahovlich, a huge right wing whose older brother, Frank, was a star with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Peter finished his junior career with the Hamilton Red Wings of the Ontario Hockey Association (now the Ontario Hockey League) and made his debut with Detroit in 1966, earning one assist in three games. For the next three seasons, he bounced between the Red Wings and their top minor-league team.
Peter, nicknamed “The Little M,” got to play with Frank, known as “The Big M” (although “The Bigger M” would have been a more appropriate name for the 6-foot-5, 215-pound younger brother) after a blockbuster trade brought Frank to Detroit on March 3, 1968. They were teammates for the 30 games that Peter spent with the Red Wings during the 1968–69 season.
The Red Wings traded Peter to the Canadiens on June 6, 1969. Now 23, he split the 1969–70 season between the Canadiens and the Montreal Voyageurs of the American Hockey League.
“The Little M” had a breakout season in 1970–71. He scored 35 goals and finished with 61 points, then helped the Canadiens to a surprising Stanley Cup championship. By that time, he and Frank had been reunited, after a late-season deal brought the older Mahovlich to Montreal.
Peter turned into a star in Montreal, scoring 34 or more goals five time in a span of six seasons and putting up 117 points in 1974–75 and 105 points in 1975–76, when the Canadiens won the first of four straight Stanley Cup championships.
The Canadiens traded Peter Mahovlich to the Pittsburgh Penguins early in the 1977–78 season, and the Red Wings acquired him again on August 3, 1979. He had 16 goals and 66 points for the Red Wings in 1979–80, then played his final 24 NHL games for the Penguins in 1980–81. He finished his NHL career with 288 goals and 773 points in 884 NHL games.
2 From the Red Wings’ first game at Joe Louis Arena on December 27, 1979, to their last night on April 9, 2017, they generally made life miserable for visiting teams. The Red Wings finished with a record of 828–432 with 119 ties and 77 overtime or shootout losses at “The Joe.”
In all, 24 opponents played at least 35 games against the Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena. The only one to finish with a winning record was the Boston Bruins, who played exactly 40 games there and finished 20–15 with three ties and two overtime/shootout losses.
The Bruins won their first visit to the then-new Joe Louis Arena, defeating the Red Wings, 5–3, on March 5, 1980. The Bruins’ next three visits all ended in ties, 4–4 on November 11, 1980, 3–3 on January 13, 1981, and 2–2 on October 22, 1981.
For the next four years, part of one of the weakest eras in Red Wings history, the Bruins made themselves right at home when they came to Detroit. Boston won six games in a row, each by at least two goals. The low point for the Red Wings came in the sixth game, a 9–2 loss on October 12, 1985.
After that, things began to get better. Detroit ended the Bruins’ winning streak at Joe Louis Arena on their next visit, winning, 6–5, in overtime on January 22, 1986. The Red Wings won again, 3–1, on March 17, 1986, and went on to take four of five games against Boston.
The Bruins then won four in a row, but the Red Wings began their own four-game winning streak with a 6–1 victory on December 18, 1992.
Detroit’s longest winning streak against the Bruins at The Joe was five consecutive victories, from November 3, 2009 (2–0) to October 9, 2014 (2–1). Boston won each of the next three games by the same score, 3–2, with one win each in regulation, overtime, and a shootout. The Red Wings won two of the last three, including a 6–5 shootout victory on January 18, 2017, with Frans Nielsen scoring the game-deciding goal.
3 It’s hard to believe an NHL team could look at Gordie Howe, even at age 15, and not see that he could become at least a regular player, if not a star (though the latter would be asking a lot). But such was the case when the New York Rangers invited Howe to a tryout in Winnipeg in 1943. With many players in the military in World War II, NHL teams were scouring every possible source for talent, and a promising 15 year old was very much of interest.
Howe was born in Floral, Saskatchewan, and raised in Saskatoon. He said years later that the trip to Winnipeg was the first time he’d ever traveled outside the area where he’d grown up. His family was poor, and he never owned a full set of hockey equipment. As at least one story goes, he had to sit and watch other players at camp put on their equipment so he could follow their example.
Howe was homesick and returned home without a “C” form, the junior contract that would have bound him to the Rangers. One year later, Red Wings scout Fred Pinkney noticed Howe and signed him.
The Rangers have a different story, citing a 1980 article in The New York Times in which Howe said the Rangers did ask him to join their junior team in Regina, Saskatchewan. But Howe said he would only sign if some friends from Saskatoon would be there too. The Rangers were not interested in other kids from Howe’s hometown, and he opted not to sign.
When the Red Wings wanted to sign him a year later, they assured Howe that some of his friends from Saskatchewan would be coming as well. By October 1946, Gordie was a Red Wing and on his way to becoming an NHL immortal.
Ironically, the Rangers did sign a Howe: Gordie’s younger brother Vic. He played 33 games for New York between 1950 and 1955, finishing with three goals and four assists.
4 You’d have to have watched the Red Wings for a long time to have seen a player with the winged wheel on the front of his jersey and No. 6 on the back. No Red Wing has worn No. 6 since Cumming “Cummy” Burton did from 1957–59.
Burton wore No. 6 in honor of his cousin, Larry Aurie, who’d spent his entire NHL career with the Detroit Cougars/Falcons/Red Wings from 1926–27 through the end of the 1938–39 season, his last in the NHL. Burton had received special permission to do so while with the Red Wings, because the number had been retired by team owner James Norris.
At 5-foot-6, Aurie was short, even for his era. But his dedication to fitness, combined with his lack of size, earned him the nicknames “Little Dempsey” (for his fistic abilities—Jack Dempsey was a famous heavyweight boxing champion) and “The Little Rag Man” (for his entertaining ability to control or “rag” the puck while he was killing penalties).
Aurie was part of the Red Wings’ first big line, playing right wing with center Marty Barry and left wing Herbie Lewis. He led the Red Wings in assists twice and topped Detroit in scoring in 1933–34 with 35 points. His highest-scoring season came in 1934–35, when he had 46 points, and he led the NHL in goals two seasons later with 23. Aurie and Lewis represented the Red Wings at the first NHL All-Star Game, a benefit game for Ace Bailey in 1934, and Aurie was a key member of the Red Wings’ first Stanley Cup-winning team in 1936.
Aurie scored his 23rd goal of the 1936–37 season on March 11, 1937, in a 4–2 win against the New York Rangers. But he fractured his ankle later in the game, ending his season. Aurie was voted a First-Team All-Star, but he was never the same after the injury. After dropping to 10 goals and 19 points in 1937–38, ownership decided after the season to honor him by retiring his No. 6—the first Red Wing to be so honored.
Aurie then became player-coach of the Pittsburgh Hornets, the Red Wings’ top farm team in the American Hockey League. He played one more NHL game, on January 10, 1939, and scored his last NHL goal in a 3–0 victory against the Montreal Canadiens at the Olympia.
After Burton’s brief time wearing No. 6, the jersey was displayed in the lobby of the Olympia during the 1960s. However, the number was not raised to the rafters, because it wasn’t customary to do so. Gordie Howe’s No. 9 was retired in 1972 by then-owner Bruce Norris, but as was the case with Aurie’s jersey, it, too, wasn’t hung.
Aurie died on December 11, 1952, at age 47. Soon after, an article appeared in the Red Wing Hockey Magazine, the team’s game program at the time, that eulogized Aurie and owner James Norris, who had died a week earlier:
It was, perhaps, merciful that Mr. Norris was spared the sudden, shocking, and untimely passing of Larry Aurie.
Larry was one of Mr. Norris’ favorite players. That was manifested when Aurie’s jersey, bearing No. 6, was retired from the active numbers, when Larry left the Red Wing lineup for the last time.
After Mike Ilitch bought the Red Wings, in 1982, he declined to display Aurie’s No. 6 along with the other retired numbers.
Red Wings vice president Jimmy Devellano told the Detroit Free Press in 1997 that the team refused to hang the number because Aurie was not a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, even though No. 6 had been retired before Ilitch became owner. Thus, No. 6 has not been issued in nearly 60 years, but it’s not officially retired.
5 He never played a single game for the Red Wings, but no one was part of more championship teams in Detroit than Budd Lynch, whose voice became to Wings fans what Ernie Harwell’s dulcet tones were to Tigers fans.
Lynch was born in Windsor, began his broadcasting career in 1936, but put it on hold three years later top serve in the Canadian Army’s Essex Scottish regiment. He was part of the force that landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944. One month later, he lost his right arm and shoulder after being hit by a German shell in France.
Lynch returned home and resumed his radio career on CKLW in Windsor as the play-by-play voice of the Spitfires. In 1949, general manager Jack Adams hired him as the TV play-by-play man—just in time for the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup four times in six seasons.
In 1960, Lynch became the team’s radio voice for the next 15 years. He tried to retire in 1975 but ended up joining the public relations department at the behest of general manager Alex Delvecchio. Lynch wanted to retire again in the mid-1980s, but the Ilitch family persuaded him to stay with the team as the public address announcer at Joe Louis Arena. He never left.
“Budd Lynch didn’t just work for the Red Wings, he was part of the brand,” former player and current Wings broadcaster Mickey Redmond told USA Today after Lynch died on October 9, 2012, at age 95. “To me, he was a walking encyclopedia of not only life, but especially the hockey world. We’re all better off for having the opportunity to work with him for so many years.
“He made a lot of people’s lives better because of the way he was and the way he carried on. He had a great demeanor, a great, proud Irishman, and wore it on his sleeve. A real gentleman.”
For millions of Wings fans, hearing Lynch on the PA was as much a part of winter as snow. His style was spare—he relayed information to his audience without becoming a cheerleader.
In 1985, Lynch was honored by the NHL Broadcasters Association with the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award at the Hockey Hall of Fame. Nine years later, Lynch was enshrined into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. In 2005, he was given the Ty Tyson Award for excellence in broadcasting by the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association.
“Budd Lynch will forever be synonymous with the Detroit Red Wings,” Red Wings GM Ken Holland said after Lynch’s death. “He experienced it all in his 63 years with the organization, from the glory days of Howe, Lindsay, Abel, and Delvecchio all the way to the championship runs of Yzerman and Lidstrom. He had a vast knowledge of the game, and the stories he could tell would have anyone who loves the sport mesmerized for hours. Budd was one of a kind, not only in his talents as a broadcaster, but in the way he lived his life and the upbeat attitude he always carried. He will be sorely missed by everyone in the Red Wings family.”