Hockeytown 25th Anniversary Celebration: 1997 Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup Championship Team

The Detroit Red Wings once again raised their 1997 Stanley Cup championship to the rafters, this time at Little Caesars Arena Thursday during a 25th anniversary celebration for the team that ended the franchise’s 42-year title drought.

Most of the players, coaches and staff from the team were introduced prior to the game against the Washington Capitals – including captain and current general manager Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, Vladimir Konstantinov, Brendan Shanahan, Conn Smythe Trophy winner Mike Vernon and former GM Ken Holland.

Coach Scotty Bowman addressed the crowd for a few minutes.

“I want to thank (former Red Wings GM and current senior vice president) Jim Devellano, who gave me a phone call in the summer of 1993 asking me if I was interested in coming to coach the Detroit Red Wings,” Bowman said. “I said I’d like to think about it. He said (owners) Marian Ilitch and Mike Ilitch would like to pick you up and your family and bring you down and talk to them in Florida. That was the start of a chance to come to Detroit. I signed a two-year contract thinking after a lot of stops with St. Louis, Montreal, Buffalo and Pittsburgh, here is your last chance to win again.”

After several playoff disappointments, the Red Wings swept the Philadelphia Flyers for the eighth Cup in franchise history.

They would repeat in 1998 and win again under Bowman in 2002, after which he retired as the winningest coach in NHL history and with nine Cups as a bench boss. The Red Wings won their 11th Cup in 2008.

“It starts with the Ilitch family,” Bowman said. “They persevered with the team they bought in 1982. It wasn’t easy.”

Bowman and Vernon dropped the pucks for the ceremonial pregame face-off.

The other players from the 1997 team that attended were: Doug Brown, Kris Draper, Kevin Hodson, Tomas Holmstrom, Joe Kocur, Igor Larionov, Kirk Maltby, Martin Lapointe, Darren McCarty, Larry Murphy, Chris Osgood, Jamie Pushor, Bob Rouse, Tim Taylor and Aaron Ward.

Sergei Fedorov, Slava Fetisov, Slava Kozlov and Tomas Sandstrom weren’t able to attend.

Associate coaches Dave Lewis and Barry Smith and assistant coach Mike Krushelnyski attended.

The 1998 Cup-winning team, which includes most of the players from 1997, will be honored prior to Saturday’s game November 5th against the New York Islanders (1 p.m., Bally Sports Detroit).

Yzerman will address the crowd during that ceremony. He and Konstantinov will drop the pucks for the ceremonial face-off.

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2022-11-03 - DISCLAIMER --- I do not own the rights to this broadcast. ***All rights reserved to BSD***

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