Conference Call With Wings GM Ken Holland and Mike Babcock
Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland and Head Coach Mike Babcock
Oct 7, 2008
Conference Call Transcript
DAVID KEON: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm David Keon of the National Hockey League's public relations department, and I'd like to welcome you to today's call. With us we have Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland along with head coach Mike Babcock.
Thanks to both Ken and Mike for joining us today, and thanks to John Hahn of the Red Wings' public relations department for helping to set up this call.On Thursday, the Red Wings will raise the 2008 Stanley Cup banner at the Joe Louis Arena when they kick off the 2008-09 regular season in North America by taking on the Toronto Maple Leafs, a game that will be carried on Versus in the United States and on CBC and RIS in Canada at 7 p.m.
Detroit has won seven consecutive division titles, has had eight consecutive 100-point seasons and has the longest active postseason streak in major professional sports that has seen them compete for the Stanley Cup the past 17 seasons.
They're also the last team to win back-to-back Stanley Cups, accomplishing that feat in 1997 and '98.Thanks again to both Ken and Mike for joining us to answer your questions.
Q. I was just wondering, could you update us on your roster moves, how you're getting down to the 23, beyond putting Aaron (Downey) on waivers, please?
KEN HOLLAND:
Well, today we assigned Ville Leino to Grand Rapids; we assigned Jonathan Ericsson to Grand Rapids; we assigned Darren Helm to Grand Rapids. We've informed Aaron Downey that he's been put on waivers, and we will readdress his situation tomorrow. And it appears that Jimmy Howard, Darren McCarty and Chris Chelios will all start the year on injured reserve.
Q. I just wanted to ask you as a coach, you had experience going to game seven with Anaheim a few years ago. Can you draw on that in terms of the short off-season and what you learned from that in terms of how you might coach and approach the early season with Detroit this year and try to avoid that Cup hangover?
MIKE BABCOCK:
Right. Our situation there was totally different. Paul Kariya and Adam Oates left and we brought in Sergei Fedorov and Vinny Prospal. We changed the group at the top totally here. We've maintained the same group and probably added more talent -- well, not probably. We've added more talent.We talk about the short summer all the time. I've made it very clear to everyone that we had 106 days off this summer and 113 last year, so it wasn't that short.But there's no question that it's hard to win the Stanley Cup; it was hard to win it last year, it's going to be hard to win it this year. Whether or not a Cup hangover has anything to do with that, I'm not sure. But we have done everything we can to reestablish our work ethic and our structure here at training camp, and we're excited about one more day to prepare and then get at her.
Link to rest of transcript
