Compare and Contrast

While I was flipping through the channels a couple nights ago, and I noticed a "Breaking News" crawl at the bottom of the screen. The News? The Falcons had just hired a new coach. Seeing that I honestly can't remember the last time I had seen that in Detroit. Maybe when news of Stevie Y's retirement, or the occasional score update of a team in the Finals. It's not like hiring a head coach is a new thing in Atlanta. This is their third in three years, which makes the Lions coaching situation seem stable. But it involves Football which is king down here (since NASCAR hasn't started yet). If it involves SEC football or the Falcons its goes to the top of the Sports section. So I thought I'd compare the Detroit teams to their Atlanta counterparts. In honor of the All-Star Game taking place in Atlanta this weekend I'll start with the Red Wings and the Thrashers

Logo:


The Wings have, in my opinion, one of the best logos in all of sports. So good it hasn't changed since it was introduced.



Here is the Thrasher logo. It looks more like a tornado with a head than a bird, I won't even go into how a bird could hold a hockey stick with it's wings


Mascot:

This is "Thrash" who apparently is some sort of Jamaican chicken


While there is no official mascot, the closest thing (other than Mo Cheese or the knitting lady) in Al the Octopus


Embarrassing Slogan:

Atlanta - "Believe in Blueland" I have no idea what this means. It's more cryptic than embarrassing. Guessing it's something to do with the home jersey? Still it's more of a marketing campaign then I've seen out of the Hawks

Detroit - "We Want Stanley" Now the song is in my head...and let us never speak of this again


Things to watch when not watching the game:

Atlanta - The Blue Crew. A group of cheerleaders roaming the arena

Detroit - No cheerleaders, but there are groups of Taylor's finest sporting their Ozzie jerseys.

History:

Atlanta - Not much. The Thrashers are in their 8th season, which was how long the Flames lasted in Atlanta before moving to Calgary. The Flames actually were kind of successful, with only 2 losing season, and making the playoffs 6 of the 8 years in Atlanta. The Thrashers made their first appearance in the playoffs last years getting swept in the first round. They also are likely to make another appearance this season. Atlanta has one link to a Hall-of-Famer. Boom Boom Geoffrion was the Flames first coach. Although current Thrasher Ilya Kovalchuk (who is the franchise leader in points) will be there with a few more years playing the way he does. Interesting side note. 2nd to Kovalchuk in points in franchise history is former Wing Slava Kozlov.

Detroit - 10 Stanley Cups, 22 Hall of famers (Counted players inducted that played 5 or more years with the Wings), and have made the playoffs for 17 straight years. I could go on and on


Now comparing these two teams isn't really fair. One was one of the Original Six, the other is the
3rd newest to the league. With the way the NHL has it's schedule set up, the Red Wings will be in Atlanta as often as Hailey's Comet makes an appearance. So adopting the Thrashers as a 2nd team will have to do for my hockey fix. It's not that bad they have a nice arena (so I've heard) and a young star in Kovalchuk. Plus Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin will be regular visitors.

Georgia (on my mind)

2008 has brought a big move for me. As the updated title of the blog, and the about me sections have listed, I am now resident of the state of Georgia. My few days in Georgia I have found out 2 things. 1) Football (pronounced foobaw) is king. This I found out last Saturday when trying to find a bar with NBA league pass to watch the Pistons-Celtics game. Three bars tried and no luck, but every TV in the bars had the Pittsburgh-Jacksonville game on. The number one story in the local paper is LSU-OSU. There's little mention of other sports, even the high school section appears before the NBA or NHL sections 2) The NHL All-Star Game is in Atlanta this year. Tickets are all sold out, but i might have to make the 20 minute drive into Atlanta to see if I can catch a glimpse of Zetterberg, Datsyuk, or Lidstrom.

Even though I'm down here in "the ATL" as the kids are calling it, with XM and DirectTV I will be able to watch or hear every Tiger game. The downside is with inter-league play on the West Coast this year, this might be the first time I don't see at least one Tiger game in person since I was 15. My best bet was for a game in Tampa Bay, but I will actually be back in MI for a wedding that weekend. There still is the off chance for a field trip to Lakeland, but that's still up in the air. So as the season draws closer I hope to post more often, and give a glimpse into what the media in other market has anything to say about the Detroit teams