Olympia Stadium

[Blueidone]

My memories of the old barn

several red wings games with dad and granddad [[always against chicago)

seeing Peggy Fleming at the Ice Folies and her looking straight at me during the curtain call, me wearing my brother's giant coat, the sleeves hanging way down from my hands while i was resting my arms on the boards, and laughing

the "four together" world hunger year benefit with Harry Chapin, Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver and James Taylor - and a touching tribute to Bing Crosby by denver and lightfoot

rb...I went to the World Hunger Benefit too! What a GREAT concert! Rotating stage...great performers...wonderful music.

But back to the original question...

My father took me to a hockey game when I was probably in my early teens [[I don't remember exactly) which would have been in the very early '60's. I knew nothing about hockey then, but Dad's company had season tix and it was dad's weekend...so there I was. We sat very close to the ice and my only memory of the game is that the goalie [[Terry Sawchuck?) got hit in the mouth with a puck...and spent the rest of the game spitting blood onto the ice. The crease became totally red by the time it stopped. I was totally grossed out at the time.

I found my love of hockey later in life and only saw one more game at Olympia in the early 70's. I don't remember much about the stadium itself, but I agree with the statement about the smoke inside!

[carolcb]

I went to at least two hockey games at Olympia, but all I remember is seeing it in my head at this point. One of my friend's mom's worked at Burrough's and she got free tickets. I also went once with my dad. I also saw Elton John at there in 1974 or 75. I stood up in classes at EMU and asked if anyone was going - we rode down with a girl from my class - her boyfriend had some souped up Plymouth - he gave us the tour of the old neighborhood. A good time was had by all....

[lpg]

My wife and I got free tickets every now and then to events at Olympia back in the 70's. We saw the Harlem Globetrotters, and the famous wrestling match with Dick the Bruiser when the old lady sitting in the aisle seat about 3 rows up from us clocked him in the face with her purse. Also saw the Ice Capades as a kid. I remember leaning over that rail and losing the top of my ice cream down onto some guy. He was not happy.

[daddeeo]

I actually got to play there as a kid. The rink ice was unbelievably smooth and the place seemed huge.
One of our players had his stick hanging over the boards when the Zamboni came by
...snap. Lucky it wasn't his arm.
AS a fan, the place had no equal. You were so close to the action, I swear you'd have blood land on you if a fight broke out. Of course, sometimes it did when a melee broke out during a Leaf game. Windsor fans often mingled with Wings fans and sometimes things got heated.
You felt bodies get jolted when there were checks into the boards. Now, it's like a delayed reaction because you seem so far away from the action.
Anyone ever have the escalator break down on them while going upstairs?
Whoa... heart attack city. It was like climbing a mountain.

[Ray1936]

On my den wall in Las Vegas.

[blackmath]

Ray, let me just say that`s an amazing wall mount you have there. What game is that ticket from?

and for the record, Daddeeo, I'm from Windsor and I can't stand the Toronto Make Me Laughs If I'm going to root for a Canadian team, it's always the Montreal Canadiens for me.

[mikefmich]

Oh God....
My first intro to Olympia was the rodeo, the Pistons, & the Ice Capades with Freddie Twinkler.

First Wings game....March of '63, Sunday evening. Wings beat the Hawks 4-1 or 4-2. For the next 5 yrs. I got to and into Wings games anyway I could.
Used to take a bus to any matinee games in that era.....a bus to Gr. River and McGraw. Anyone here letting their 14 yr old on a bus in that neighborhood lately? lol
My uncle ran a tool & die shop across the street from Motor City Racetrack. He got corp tx down in the corner where the Wings scored twice...just a little bit out from the red line. Super seats, I sat there many times.
One of my dads employees was the head usher on the main level.....tx, puck, broken sticks, autographs, etc. He was a good man to know.
My first playoff game was against the Hawks in....hmmmm '64? Easter Sunday.....we shellacked em something like 7-2.
Last playoff game was against Montreal in 78....we got shellacked.

When Gordie was close to passing Richard, I was getting tx to as many games as possible. One night in Nov of 63 he lofted a puck at a empty net....think it was Bruins or Rangers, everyone was on their feet screaming...damn puck hit the post.

Watched Paul Henderson score 4 goals against the Rangers....in those days even a hat trick was something.

Perhaps my most awesome game memory.....last couple weeks of the season in 65. Wings had gone nuts starting in February and surged into first place. Dad was waiting outside my HS that night when I got out of swimming practice. Him picking me up always meant we had hockey tx.

They were playing the Habs that night, Wings were in first place over the Habs by maybe 3-4 pts. A win would stretch their lead to 5-6 pts. which might hold up.

Wings were leading midway thru the 3rd 2-1, but the Habs tied the score with 5-6 minutes left. A huge groan went thru the crowd. With 15 seconds left in the game, there was a faceoff in the Wings end. Fats & Gordie was out there, along with Gadbsy. Abel sent out Ullman, Normy usually didnt play a line with Fats & Gordie, but Abel wanted his scrappy tenaciousness out there.

Wings won the face off, went straight down the ice...I can't remember anymore who passed to who, but with 5 seconds left Normy or Fats netted it. The place went fooken nuts.

For any of you who had the pleasure of watching a game at Olympia...and saw them win a come from behind, late game heroics in an important game...then you KNOW how loud that place could be in those situations. Honestly, I swore I could feel the walls pulsating.

It's been mentioned....the cigar smoke...the smell of beer...huge amounts of the crowd in suits and ties...it was a different era and a different place.

Some talk about how loud the old Chicago Stadium was....it had nothing on Olympia. I hated Joe Louis for years. Olympia will always be one of my fondest if not my fondest Detroit memory.

[Ray1936]

Ticket was from the very last event to be held at the Olympia, a Red Wings old-timers hockey game on February 27, 1976, against the Montreal Canadiens old timers. Didn't go, the ticket came with the plaque when I bought it a zillion years ago.

[Rochelle St.]

Did anyone see the Beatles play at Olympia, or later, Paul Mccartney and Wings?
I would have liked to have had.

[mikefmich]

Ticket was from the very last event to be held at the Olympia, a Red Wings old-timers hockey game on February 27, 1976, against the Montreal Canadiens old timers. Didn't go, the ticket came with the plaque when I bought it a zillion years ago.

Hope you didn't pay a premium for that "last event" stub.

[9606 Prest]

I did attend several concerts at Olympia including Wings with Paul & Linda McCartney, The Eagles & Elton John. All were extremely enjoyable I also went to nearly every Sunday home Red Wing game in 1965 and 1966 paying 2 dollars to stand in the balcony or if we had money we bought 3 dollar standing room in the lower arena. Great games, great times!

[Ltdave]

theres a pizza joint in port huron, whos owner played hockey at Ferris State and then played for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, Indianapolis Ice and the Port Huron Beacons name is Casey Harris...

He has one of the scoreboards from Olympia on the wall of the 'party' room. he and Shawn Burr are good friends as well...

i personally had never been to Olympia, and have only been to the Joe a couple of times, once for hockey the others for concerts...

[Ray1936]

Hope you didn't pay a premium for that "last event" stub.

Gawd, I can't recall. My wife bought it for me for a christmas present decades ago, and I never asked.

[Downriviera]

An interesting part of the Olympia was that the Zamboni doors were in the corner of the rink unlike most arenas these days where it is behind the goal.. My dad told me to watch how the Red Wing players would dump the puck in low along the boards towards the Zamboni doors. There was a piece of the door that stuck out a bit and when the puck would hit there it deflected towards the front of the net where a teamate would be waiting to fire it in. This was a unique home ice advantage which I saw them score on numerous times. When I was playing in a junior game there, I told my linemate about it and to break for the front of the net when I dumped it in. It worked perfect and he scored. I never saw the goal though. While I was admiring my perfect dump in the opposing defenseman lined me up and blindsided me. I was a bit woozy but more embarressed than anything else. The trainer gave me a whiff of smelling salts and I was good to go.

[Magnatomicflux]

My memories of the old barn

HEY! Windsor Arena is "The Barn" !
Same great seating though. Almost right on top of the ice!


Here's one I have from VMCP. Ohhhhhhhh Sterophonic sound system!


Attachment 7440


blackmath, welcome to the board! Fellow Windsorite here. Thanks for the info about the steel doors that are on Windsor Arena. Does eveyone know that the Wings played there while this was being built? Is that a fact or did I just hear that somewhere? lol

[Vic_doucette]

I did attend several concerts at Olympia including Wings with Paul & Linda McCartney, The Eagles & Elton John. All were extremely enjoyable

Back in high school, a female classmate asked me to go to see Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" tour with her at Olympia Stadium. She was somewhat unstable psychologically and I didn't want to deal with all the drama I was sure would come with the evening. I also didn't want to be a jerk and lead her on, making her think I wanted more out of our relationship than I really did. I passed on the experience and she went with someone else.

Looking back, I sometimes wish I'd been a jerk.

[mikefmich]

HEY! Windsor Arena is "The Barn" !
Same great seating though. Almost right on top of the ice!


Here's one I have from VMCP. Ohhhhhhhh Sterophonic sound system!


Attachment 7440


blackmath, welcome to the board! Fellow Windsorite here. Thanks for the info about the steel doors that are on Windsor Arena. Does eveyone know that the Wings played there while this was being built? Is that a fact or did I just hear that somewhere? lol

Your correct....the Wings spent a season playing in Windsor pre Olympia days.

[schulzte]

I've posted here before under new arena threads, but I thought it would be appropriate for this discussion. Anyone interested in something like this for a new arena; an updated Olympia Stadium?









See more at http://www.newolympia.blogspot.com

[Wingnatic]

I think it would be awesome to have a new rink built to resemble Olympia ! Of course it would have to be built minus those stairs on the outside , spacious concourse/consession area's , more bathrooms , easy in and out for shuttle buses , more seat room etc . , I'm sure any new blueprints would include those , but a building design like Olympia would be sweet !

[Whitehouse]

Just wiki'd my way from the Red Barn via C. Howard Crane to Orchestra Hall, also a Howard Crane designed building. Kind of ironic to read that this building was build in the space of only five months and that the restoration, beginning in 1970 lasted for two decades. It was scheduled for demolition in 1970, now look what a gem was saved!

Did some trades get lost in time??

[Magnatomicflux]

Yup. If the ability of building something pleasing to the eye is a trade, North America has lost it. Where are all our masons? Howcome if you want something built with quality you have to pretty much hire some super specialized contractor or import a normal contractor from Europe? What happened to bricks and stone? When did we think bland concrete, steel and blue tinted glass was something to admire? Maybe I'm just bitter being in Windsor. We've litteraly wiped out our original downtown and replaced it with either absolutly nothing, or this "modern" garbage. There are only a handful of nice places here from the turn of the last century and they can't hold a candle to the places Detroit has in abundance, abandonned, burnt out or whatever. There are more totally ruined gorgious homes and buildings in Detroit than Windsor's entire downtown was made of.

Ever notice that when a place uses gawd awful devil stucco, they put shapes in like they're using stone window sills or cornerstones? Why? Why not use bricks and stone? What's so awesome about styrofoam covered in paste? Aside from being cheap?
Is using brick and stone really that much more expensive? I honestly don't know.


Uh..........anyways lol....does anyone know when the Joe is to be abandonned? Where will the new arena be? That rendering above [[which I think is great!) looks like it was very far from downtown. Would this be a good place for it again?

[blackmath]

Thanks for the welcome, Magnatomicflux You're exactly right about Windsor having a terrible track record of destroying it's historical buildings. What's even more troubling is what was supposed to be built, but wasn't due to the depression or short sightedness. Windsor looks like it was built after 1970 - and that's very sad considering it is the oldest French Canadian settlement west of Montreal.

Back to the subject at hand, I really hope the Red Wings go out on a limb and build a retro style arena like the one shown above in those renderings. The Orioles took a chance and built Camden Yards nearly 20 years ago now and every team in the major leagues built retro style parks after seeing how well it was received. Maybe the same could happen in hockey IF the Wings take a chance and do something different.

[schulzte]

The rendering is just north of I-75 on Woodward, though Foxtown or by the Motor City casino are possibile sites too. This won't be a trend, because no other hockey team could ever pull off a building like this because almost all the other teams have already built new buildings in the past 15 years, and the teams that haven't don't have the history of the Detroit Red Wings. A building like this would be totally unique to the Red Wings

http://www.newolympia.blogspot.com

[Magnatomicflux]

What's even more troubling is what was supposed to be built, but wasn't due to the depression or short sightedness. Windsor looks like it was built after 1970 - and that's very sad considering it is the oldest French Canadian settlement west of Montreal. .

You're quite welcome blackmath. By what's not underlined.....sounds like you frequent internationalmetropolis, and what I've underlined sounds almost word for word complaints I've made of Windsor on that board! Except I think I said "some turd that popped up outy of the 70's" lol

schulzte - Thanks for the info, I suppose I should've visited your blog...sorry about that! I like the Foxtown option. Pretty damn good for your first 3-D model I must say!

[Downriviera]

Due to the closeness of the balconys and overhangs at Olympia and Tiger Stadium, there were some obstructed view seats that were located behind the support pillars. I remember reading before the new stadiums were built that they would have no obstructed view seats. So every seat has an unobstructed view, but because of this, all the seats are farther from the action. I would gladly put up with some obstructed view seats to get closer to the field of play. You could sit in the last row of the balcony at Olympia and still feel and hear the action. If you are more than a third of the way up the upper bowl at the Joe, you lose the feel and sound of the game.