I have followed Nick Cotsonika’s writing for some time. The connection is obvious — he held my dream job as Red Wings beat writer for the Detroit Free Press from 1999-2005 and penned a book on the best hockey team ever assembled in history, the 2002 Red Wings. Now, he writes for Yahoo! as its national hockey columnist.

Today, he published a great piece. It’s one of those articles that I will read over and over again, probably for years to come. Why? Easy. It explains not only a major reason why I love the Red Wings but also why I despise so many other teams in the league.

No goons, just good: Red Wings’ winning ways fights NHL belief that every team needs enforcer

Here’s a great excerpt:

There is no debate that many fans like fighting. There is no debate that fighting can intimidate and play a role in team toughness. There is no debate that there are different ways to build a successful organization.

But do you need fighting to sell the game to hardcore hockey people? Do you need it to win? Does it necessarily protect your skilled players? No. It can even be counterproductive.

Detroit loves a good fight. It has a scrappy, underdog image. It has a rich boxing history, once the home of Kronk Gym and Emanuel Steward and Tommy ‘Hitman’ Hearns. The Wings play in an arena named after Joe Louis, and a huge sculpture of his fist hangs in the heart of the city.

 The Joe rocks like anyplace else for a fight. Some of the most popular Wings have been guys who could punch – Bob Probert, Darren McCarty, Brendan Shanahan – and a couple of the most memorable moments in Wings history were line brawls against the blood rival Colorado Avalanche.

Yet the Wings have hardly dropped the gloves over the last couple of decades, the Joe has been sold out for virtually all of that time, and the fans have embraced peaceful, graceful players like Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, too.

Why? The Wings have won.

Find the rest of the article here.

As a hockey player growing up, I shied away from the physical aspects of the game. Despite growing to nearly six feet by the middle of high school, I didn’t like to hit people. Sometimes, I think it was instinct or intuition that kept me from being a blue-line bruiser — especially after I found out at 16 that I was born with fused vertebrae in my spine and actually shouldn’t have been hitting people due to the risk of a paralyzing injury (in fact, I should have never played competitive hockey at all).

But beyond that, the sport’s appeal to me has always been the skill of the game.

As a hockey fan, I appreciate toughness (see: Nick Lidstrom in 2009) and revenge (see: March 26, 1997), but I have no tolerance for and no interest in fighting for fighting’s sake or bruising goons taking roster spots from real hockey players (see: John Scott, Shawn Thornton, many others). It’s why I can’t stand the Bruins and the way they play, despite my many years in New England. It’s why I hate Boston fans that wear “Lucic Fight Club” t-shirts and pump their fists for fights but merely clap for goals. Go watch the MMA, you trolls. Hockey offers something more.

Skating and stopping, spraying flakes of ice up the boards. Giving and receiving a crisp, cross-ice pass that connects in stride. Sniping the top corner from the slot or winding up for a rocket slapshot at the point. Handling the puck on a string, as if it were glued to the blade’s tacky tape. These are my favorite things about hockey. These also describe the greatest strengths of the Red Wings and my favorite players of all-time: Steve Yzerman, Pavel Datsyuk, Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg, Sergei Fedorov.

Nick Cotsonika captured all of that in his article today, and it’s worth reading. Check it out.

Go Wings.

(Note: Much respect to the Bruins fans that actually like hockey, many of whom are friends. You help me keep my sanity in this crazy town).