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A text to Red Wings general manager Ken Holland got ball rolling on Mike Modano dealAug 07, 2010 (Detroit Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- General manager Ken Holland wasn't sure how to proceed: Should he make a follow-up phone call? Call the agent? Or was Mike Modano maybe just not that into the Red Wings? That's when Holland heard a ping that made his day. A little over a week had passed since the Wings had treated Modano to an all-out recruitment visit on July 6, flying him in from Dallas and taking him to lunch and a Tigers game. Holland wasn't sure how to continue the courtship, which culminated with Friday's press conference introducing Modano as the newest Wing. "I was having a conversation with Mike Babcock one day," Holland said, "and I was wondering, what's my next move -- should I call, should I wait? And out of the blue, Mike sent me a text. Ping, the thing popped up on my text and I looked and it was 972 -- I know his number. I think it was like, 'How's it going,' or 'How are you doing.' "That's the first time for me that I thought he was engaged with the Red Wings." Modano just needed time to decide if, at 40, he wanted to keep playing. Detroit interested him from the start, as it provided a chance for his hockey career to come full circle. Modano skated at Joe Louis Arena while a member of Mike Ilitch's Little Caesars program from ages 9-15 (with one year at Compuware), idolized former Wings defenseman Reed Larson and helped himself to a few sticks. "Having the Red Wings uniform on as a 9-year-old was the greatest thing in the world," Modano said. "When I played with Reed Larson in Minnesota, I remember telling him I used to come watch him. Once a week, or twice a week, we would come down here and practice and be able to go through all the guys' sticks and grab their sticks that they weren't using ... great memories." More than two decades after he departed Detroit, Ilitch was delighted to welcome Modano back. "I just followed him very, very closely," Ilitch said. "Every time I thought of him or saw him, I kept saying, 'There's going to be another Modano popping up in Detroit,' and in 20 years, nobody's popped up. He was always in our thoughts, it was almost like he was here from the standpoint that his name has been so strong, and he's been such an exceptional player, a Hall-of-Fame type of player, so he never leaves your mind when you start out with him and he does well." Contact HELENE ST. JAMES: 313-222-2295 or [email protected]. Read more in her Red Wings blog at freep.com/redwingsblog. To see more of the Detroit Free Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.freep.com Copyright (c) 2010, Detroit Free Press Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). |