Olympia Stadium - Grand River & McGraw

[Downriviera]

I had the same reaction as a previous poster about the steep steps in the balcony. One wrong step and you got 2 minutes off for delay of game. I went to about a dozen Red Wing games over the years. The most memorable were the Stanley Cup playoff games against the Black Hawks with Bobby Hull being shadowed by Howie Young. I also saw the Ice Capades and roller derby games there too.

It was a lousy place for concerts. I can't believe they would sell seats behind the stage, but they did. I went to my first RnR concert there to see the Animals tho' Herman's Hermits were the headliners. There was still an element of yelling, screaming girls for the Hermits so I left after the second number. Also saw Frank Zappa and the Mothers when he had former Turtles, Flo & Eddie, in the band. Saw Cream's farewell concert tour there too.

That was actually Bryan Bugsy Watson who was assigned to shadow Bobby Hull in the playoffs. My fathers company had four seats in the front row behind the net. Dad and his coworkers were at the game where Hull finally had enough of Watson and popped him in the head with his stick, drawing some blood. All the fans became enraged at Hull for this. Back in those days the glass behind the net was much lower, so you could stand on your seat and pull yourself up on the glass to yell at the players. My dad and his friends jumped up on the glass and were really giving it to Hull verbally, when suddenly he swung his stick at them. No one got hit, they just jumped back somewhat startled at what had just happened. Also in those days, the visiting team walked through the lobby to get to the ice from their dressing room with only a wooden railing and a few ushers separating them from the fans. So after the intermission, my dad's group is standing next to the wooden rail as the Black Hawks were coming back out, and Hull starts to walk right towards them. They first thought he was going to swing his stick at them again. Instead he apologized for swinging his stick at them earlier. Hull was a class act.

[Mikeg]

I saw a lot of Red Wings games at Olympia Stadium during my high school years [['68-69 and '69-70 seasons). I would drive my younger brother down to the Olympia, park in the Northwestern field parking lot and purchase standing room tickets. As soon as they let the standees into the building, we would run for "the world's longest escalator" and try to claim our favorite spot in the balcony.

We would go all the way down the far right balcony aisle [[along the wall) where it widened out slightly at the bottom to create a space big enough for two. We had an unobstructed view nearly straight down to the ice and we didn't interfere with anyone else's view.

Beginning in 1975, I worked in the same General Motors engineering department as Art Quatro. He was supposedly the only GM employee to ever purchase a Cadillac Limousine using the employee discount. His musician son Mike was branching out into concert promotion and buying made more sense than continually renting a limo.