For Red Wings fans who feel like they’ve lost touch with their favorite players, here’s an update on what some of the Wings are doing during the lockout:

Henrik Zetterberg
Timra (Sweden)

Henrik Zetterberg wears #20 for Timra, and has 5 goals and 4 assists through 8 games played. He had previously played for Timra from 2000-2002, after being drafted by the Wings in round 7 (210 overall) in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft. Timra is 5-2-1 and third in the Swedish Elite League. Powerhouse Team Modo is currently fourth at 3-2-4. Tomas Holmstrom’s Lulea is sixth at 4-4-0. Click here if you want detailed game summaries (in Swedish) for Timra.

Tomas Holmstrom
Lulea (Sweden)

Tomas Holmstrom wears #96 for Lulea, and has 3 goals and 2 assists through 8 games played. He had previously played for Lulea from 1994-1996, after being drafted by the Wings in round 10 (257 overall) in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft. Click here if you want detailed game summaries (in Swedish) for Lulea. Below is a picture of Zetterberg and Holmstrom facing off against each other:

Pavel Datsyuk (Павел Дацюк)
Dynamo Moscow (Russia)

Pavel Datsyuk wears #13 for Dynamo, and has 2 goals and 3 assists through 8 games played. Dynamo is currently second in the Russian Super League. Click here if you want detailed game summaries (in Russian) for Dynamo.

Anders Myrvold
Valerenga (Norway)

Anders Myrvold wears #54 for Valerenga, and has 2 goals and 5 assists through 7 games played. Valerenga is currently seventh in the Norwegian Hockey League.

Jiri Fischer
Liberec (Czech Republic)

Jiri Fischer will wear #2 for Liberec, which is currently fourth in the Tipsport Extraliga. Jiri has yet to play for Liberec, after suffering a separated right shoulder in the World Cup of Hockey. Jiri should join his Czech team in early November.

Jason Williams
Assat Pori (Finland)

Although a deal is yet to be set in stone, Jason Williams is leaving for Finland early next week to join up with the Assat Pori Aces in the Finnish Elite League:

“Basically, the contract is going back and forth between my agent and the team on the details. I’ll be leaving Monday or Tuesday…I don’t know much about the team but I do know one of the players. I played with Scott Langkow, their starting goalie, in Cincinnati.”

Williams also said that he would return to Detroit immediately if the lockout ends.

Darren McCarty
Band, Grinder

Instead of heading over to Europe like some of his teammates, Darren McCarty is getting back with his band Grinder to play some shows. ESPN NHL 2K5 included four Grinder songs on its video game playlist, something McCarty attributes to the growing interest in the band.

Chris Chelios
Bobsledding

In his free time since the World Cup of Hockey, Chelios has been bashing Gary Bettman, looking for a new insurance policy, managing Cheli’s Chili Bar, and bobsledding with the US Team in Lake Placid, NY. Chelios is considering a run for the Greek bobsled team at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. He’s also looking to the Chicago Wolves of the AHL as a possible lockout destination:

“Realistically, I want to stay with the Chicago Wolves. It’s so close to home. I could commute with my kids. If it gets too tough with the commuting, it won’t be worth it to be away from the family. We’ll see how it goes.”

As many Wings, Chelios, 42, is working hard to stay in shape during the lockout.

Recently, he met up with former Wings Igor Larionov and Aaron Ward, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Jason Woolley at Suburban Training Center in Farmington Hills. Cheli has also skated with Derian Hatcher and former Wing Doug Brown.

Mark Mowers/Jamie Rivers
Original Stars Hockey League

Jamie Rivers is on “Detroit” and Mark Mowers is on “Toronto” of the Original Stars Hockey League, the brainchild of OSHL president Randy Gumbley. I use quotations with team names, as all games are played in Canada. In the opening game of the pre-season, Toronto beat Detroit in a 16-13 decision. The game was wide open, and lacked checking and emotion. Rivers scored three goals and Mowers had one goal. Attendance was pretty low (2,176 in an arena that can hold 4,500), and only a few hundred fans showed up a few days later for a game in Brampton, Ontario.

The OSHL regrouped, canceling the remaining pre-season games, and started its regular season this past Thursday. That night, New York beat Toronto 11-4 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Edmonton Oiler Jason Chimera had three goals, and there were 91 shots on the night. Attendance was 2,025, which was high considering only about 500 tickets had been sold by Thursday morning. A 2-for-1 ticket deal helped surge the sales by game-time though. The general consensus on the OSHL is that it is all-star style hockey without the big-name all stars, and that the lack of checking and defense makes the game boring.

Manny Legace
CBA player representative for Red Wings

Manny Legace was chosen by teammates to be the player representative for the Red Wings during CBA negotiations. I’m sure he’s been having fun participating in the trench warfare, with sides not talking for a month and counting now.

Derian Hatcher
Let’s Play Racing, owner

Brothers Derian and Kevin Hatcher are owners of Let’s Play Racing, a powerboat racing team stationed in Detroit. Derian even drives power boats from time to time, and has joined up with Chelios and Doug Brown in workout sessions.

Management
Scouting

The coaching staff and members of management will scout Grand Rapids, as well as other local professional or collegiate teams, as they wait for the lockout to end. Jimmy Devellano, the Wings’ senior vice president, plans on concentrating on Europe and the AHL. On the side, Head Coach Dave Lewis and Assistant Coach Joey Kocur are co-owners of “Joe & Lewie’s Penalty Box” Sports Tavern and Eatery in Fenton.

Ken Daniels
Painting his House, Growing Beard

Ken Daniels, the Wings’ play-by-play announcer of the past seven seasons, is hanging around his house in Farmington Hills, waiting for the lockout to end. He has painted his house, and played some pickup hockey. He also is growing a beard that he says he might even keep after the lockout ends. Daniels is a contract employee with the Wings, so he isn’t getting paid during the lockout:

“My dad called me the other day. He told me I’d better find a job or think about going back to school. Doing college hockey will certainly help pay the bills.”

But he’ll do college hockey games this season, as well as host “Best of the Red Wings” games on FSN. Meanwhile, Daniels’ partner in crime, Mickey Redmond, is busy with his travel and tour business.

The Wings were supposed to play in Edmonton tonight at 9:00 ET for their season opener. Instead, they are scattered across the US and Europe, training in gyms and on the ice or playing with unfamiliar teammates. Or, in the case of defenseman Chris Chelios, training with the US bobsled team:

Thank you, Gary Bettman, for orchastrating this lockout and thank you owners for going along with it like a herd of sheep. Thank you, Bob Goodenow, for staying so steadfast in your resolve not to let the NHL “win” the negotiations and thank you players for letting Goodenow scare you into silence.

I am completely disgusted. We have been robbed. If the lockout had no effect on you before, it should now.

If you want to get really mad, read these:

TSN Hotseat transcripts of select reporter’s grilling the NHL’s Bill Daly and the NHLPA’s Ted Saskin (via. Hockeybird)
- The reporters actually ask some excellant questions but Daly and Saskin generally skirt around them in the TSN interviews. These are worth reading strictly for the quality of the questions.

NHL.com transcript of Gary Bettman’s chat with fans yesterday
- The fans were a lot easier on Gary Bettman and gave him ample opportunity to spew his crap. If you’ve had your fill of rhetoric and can’t take any more, do not bother reading it.

One thing I get from those transcripts is that the “leadership” of both sides has got to go. There will never be a deal as long as Gary Bettman/Bill Daly and Bob Goodenow/Ted Saskin are leading their respective organizations. How long it will take for the owners and players to realize this (if ever) is the big question.

Fox Sports Net Detroit will air a “Best of the Red Wings” series starting October 20th, Ted Kulfan said today in the Detroit News’ Red Wings Mailbag. The first game to be shown will be Game 2 of the 1998 Stanley Cup Finals, the game in which the Wings came back from two 2-goal deficits to defeat the Washington Capitals in overtime.

The other games which will be shown:

Game 3 of the 1998 Finals against the Caps (October 25th)
- Tomas Holmstrom scores in the first minute and Sergei Fedorov puts it away in the 3rd, giving the Wings a 3-0 series lead

Game 4 of the 1998 Finals against the Caps (October 28th)
- Wings win their second Stanley Cup in two years and The Captain hands the Cup off to Vladimir Konstantinov

Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the St. Louis Blues
- Steve Yzerman scores the game winner if double-OT from center ice

The March 26th, 1997 Colorado Avalanche game
- Darren McCarty exacts revenge on Claude Lemieux for his hit on Kris Draper the previous spring as just one of many fights that night

Game 4 of the 1997 Finals against the Flyers
- McCarty scores a once-in-a-career goal which ended up giving the Wings their first Cup in 42 years

All games will start at 8:00 ET.

I already have three of those games on tape but I’ll definitely have my VCR set for the last three. I can remember the 1998 Finals like it was yesterday, particularly the goals. Game 2 is one of my most favorite hockey games ever and I’ll always remember Doug Brown flying across the ice as he scored the final game tying goal. Not to mention the epic effort Olaf Kolzig put in by doing the splits to try to stop the inevitable game winner off the stick of Kris Draper in overtime. Ah, memories.

I’ve actually never seen the 1996 Semifinals Game 7 or the March 26th game (gasp!). The first was before my time as a fan (or right at the start, when I was just becoming one) and the second wasn’t on a channel I had at the time.

It’s nice of the network to throw us a bone like this but, to be honest, I’d much rather have some new games to watch. I mean, I can always buy the upcoming (November 2) Detroit Red Wings: A Celebration of Champions (part of the NHL’s Original Six series) 4-disc DVD set if I want to see some classic modern-era Red Wings games. But I’ll watch FSN’s replays anyway because I’m a Red Wings hockey junkie and I’m hockey starved enough as it is.