Let’s Start This Off With a Rant! Mickey Redmond…RELAX!!
I am a huge Red Wings fan. Probably my favorite team behind the Tigers, but it is pretty close. I have tried to watch every game I can for the past 20+ yrs. I remember watching the Wings on PASS. One staple of the Wings is Mickey Redmond, the color guy in the booth for televised games on Fox Sports Detroit. He started off working with Dave Strater and now Ken Daniels. Since 2003 he no longer attends road trips out west where Larry Murphy takes his seat. Through the years Mickey has become an icon here in Detroit. The closest thing to Ernie Harwell or the Tigers, but not that close.
Mickey can be funny with all his cute little sayings but as the years go by he just plain gets annoying. So annoying that I can almost no longer handle listening to him anymore. He is the perfect example of a “Homer”. It’s as if the Wings can do no wrong in his eyes and anything the other team does or the refs do is an atrocity. Last week he called the refs “bush league” because they made a mistake. Was it a mistake. Clearly. The puck his the mesh above the end boards which should have stopped the play but they didn’t and the opponents scored what ended up being the game winning goal. Yes, it is annoying. Yes it cost us the game. Yes it was a huge mistake, but it was just a mistake. Mistakes happen in every league. Calls are missed in the NFL and the NBA, umps make bad calls at the plate often, it’s just human nature. Not everything is perfect and it will never be perfect. Also the NHL has video replay but it can only be used to check time, to see if the puck crossed the goal line, and how the puck was put into the net (high stick, kicked, etc). So when Kenny Daniels, the play by play guy, explained how they could not use the replay to change the call you would have thought Mickey was just told his cat was killed by the NHL. He went off on rants during the game and then again at the end where he acted as if something drastic should be done to the refs. Give me a break, it was a mistake, and one that happens so rarely that you just have to suck it up and move on.
Mickey was a player back in his day. He was a 50 goal scorer in 72-73 and a tough guy on top of it. He misses the violence and the contact that used to be in the game and complains about the “New NHL” as much as he can. Every single penalty called against the Wings is ticky-tacky. It’s to the point where he either pouts like a child or he goes on a rampage every time he sees a penalty. Sometimes when the call is on the opponents, but not even close to the amount of times when the Wings get called for the infraction. What is funny is that back in the mid-90’s he would complain about how the league needs to stop all the hooking and interference in the neutral zone and now they do and he complains that these new rules are killing the game.
Mickey, please just relax and go back to calling the game. Right now it is just play by play and then you pissing and moaning about something like some old cranky scrooge. Take a listen the next time Larry does the color. Listen to him talk about the game and his past experiences. Listen to him explain what is going on in the game and adding insight to the plays being executed. Listen to him when he gets upset at a call. Take notes, take a Valium, and relax. If you can’t then I beg you…hang it up, move on, get off my TV.
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