Being a fan of the Detroit Red Wings has been nothing short of a privilege, I’ve had the sanctimonious honor of being able to watch the best team in professional North American sports over the last two decades dominate the National Hockey League witnessing a plethora of division titles, conference titles, six President’s Trophies, and four Stanley Cups.  The Red Wings have had numerous legends and help define Red Wing hockey in that two decade span such as Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Brendan Shanahan, Dominik Hasek, Gerald Gallant, Chris Osgood, Mike Vernon, Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, Slava Fetisov, Igor Larionov, and local legends such as Kris Draper, Darren McCarty, Kirk Maltby, and Tomas Holmstrom.  However, no player has been more integral to the Red Wings dynasty in that span than Nicklas Lidstrom who announced his retirement after twenty years of incomparable play.  If Yzerman was the man who built hockeytown and was the heart, Nick Lidstrom was the brain.  Nick Lidstrom is a top five defenseman of all time, and will be forever remembered for his contributions to not only the Detroit Red Wings, but to the National Hockey League.  I believe I speak for the entire fanbase, when I note that seeing “Norris Nick” is a bitter sweet feeling.  You see one of the greatest players of all time, perhaps better than any of the aforementioned players above hang up the skates and reflect on all the momentous happiness that he brought to you over the duration of his career, but you also cannot help but note of how much this hurts the current team and more depressingly, how it truly ends a generation.  With the retirement of Lidstrom, and the most likely impending retirement of team best friend Tomas Holmstrom, the Red Wings will have no players left from the 1997 and 1998 Stanley Cup winning teams, and only player left from the 2002 team.  Lidstrom has been the definition of what it means to be a role model and to be a hockey player and broke down a lot of Canadian media biases against European players by being the first European to win the Conn Smythe(Playoff MVP) in 2002, and the first European captain to hoist the Stanley Cup which was in 2008.  Lidstrom is my personal third all time favorite player behind Yzerman and Shanahan, and watching his retirement presser and seeing his eyes well up made it perhaps the hardest retirement that I’ve had to sit through.  I had a really hard time getting through Yzerman and Shanny’s, but this one might be the most rough.  It not only ends an amazing athlete’s career but an era.  Thank you for everything you’ve brought to the city of Detroit, to the Red Wings, and to NHL, Mr. Perfect, and here’s hoping to just as much of an illustrious post career.

-Love,

One die hard fan.

I’d like to introduce you all to my friend, Mr. Perfect.

He treats women with respect, knows how to dress himself, goes to church on Sundays, and is about to pass the bar to be a lawyer.

He’s 5’10, naturally athletic, with gorgeous brown eyes and an absolutely killer smile.

He loves children and dogs, wants a house with a wrap-around porch, and can even cook a little bit. When I need to talk, or I need help with something, he’s always dropped everything to do what he can for me. If I call him because I’m lost and need directions, he’ll look it up. When my CV needed proofing, he spent an evening going over it. He’s the kind of friend and the kind of man who is reliable and steady, but without being boring.

Can you tell that maybe I’m a little in love with him? We’ve been friends for a little more than a year, and talked almost every day up until about two weeks ago.

The odd thing is that we met online, but just hit it off. E-mailing turned into texting, which turned into skyping. We never talked about it, neither of us probably knew why we were doing this to ourselves since we lived on opposite coasts. But it didn’t stop us- we talked almost every day. If 48 hours passed without us talking, one of us would predictably send the other a note “just thinking of you” or something like that. It was crazy. I didn’t know why I was subjecting myself to that kind of torture, but I couldn’t look at other guys. Nobody else interested me anymore, because nobody is as good as he is. He’s basically perfect.

I moved to England to attend school, putting even more distance between us. But before I left he shared some serendipitous news with me- his law school had a study abroad program. In England. And he was going to apply for it. Since the day he got in, both of us have been counting down to the end of this summer, to the time that he’d arrive and we could meet in person. I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never known what he thinks of me. But that’s the only thing about our friendship that is an unknown because other than that, we seem to know each other backwards and forwards.

21 days ago he was in a sorry mood. Something was off, within 2 minutes of talking I knew something was wrong. He couldn’t explain it but he said I was right, I was uncannily perceptive, and he just didn’t know why he felt so miserable. In return, I felt awful too because there was nothing I could do to make him feel better.

18 days ago he was the polar opposite of what he had been three days earlier. He was laughing, joking, smiling. Something was different. What was it? Something had changed. I asked, and he excitedly told me that he had met a girl at church two days earlier. He was nuts about her, and he was certain she felt the same.

Nuts? How can you be nuts about someone you have known for two days?

1 day ago I texted him because we haven’t talked practically at all in the last two weeks, which is not normal for us. With the 8 hour time difference, it was 1AM for me and I didn’t have the patience to talk long or wait for his distracted responses. But I hung around long enough for a major shock.

7 days from now he will be flying home to see his parents.

His girlfriend is going with him.

They’re in love.

Dolph Ziggler.  When Dolph is late into his matches and his hair is everywhere it reminds me a lot of Mr. Perfect.  And Dolph’s ring attire and entrance as well as the “fameasser” he does all remind me of Billy Gunn.  It looks like Dolph is going to Break away from Swagger and maybe Vickie too.  Good News!