The prodigal son . . .

Just like sleepy little Eugene is the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest City of the Arts and Outdoors," so too has Detroit taken a little creative license in declaring itself none other than the one and only "Hockeytown." 

You'll see the motto nearly everywhere; on billboards and bumpers, banners and baby clothing, on barns and restaurants and neckties.

For anyone familiar with this typically northern sport that has taken over me and my family, you certainly understand why I volunteered for this highly-sensitive government assignment that has brought me to Michigan.

I also suspect that most of you are not hockey fans and have likely turned the channel already.

Anyway, if you're still with me at this point, here are the highlights of the day, which was devoted to everything known as Mike Modano.

During my extensive research into southern Michigan, I found that a west Detroit suburb was home to the boy who would one day become the all-time goal scoring and points leader amongst U.S. borne hockey players.     

It's really an impressive feat, when one considers that I've already amassed thirteen points (two goals, eleven assists) in my five years as a late blooming recreational player.  My stats are impressive, I'll admit, but I'm also quite realistic in the knowledge that I'll really never be able to match the record of Mike Modano.  He's currently sitting at better than 500 goals and well over 1300 points, so nothing shy of steroids and some sort of Buddhist do-over can help me close the gap.

The suburb of Westlake took their own literary license in renaming the city ice rink after the local prodigal son, proclaiming it to be the Mike Modano Ice Arena.  They even went as far as to dress the exterior with a cartoonish likeness of the man as he hoisted the Stanley Cup in the 1999 championship series.

I found the inside of the rink to be pretty much the old-school standard that I've seen in Vancouver, B.C., and other northern cities; a building rusted with frost bite and showing several layers of paint that could only signify several decades of hard use.  Championship banners, from youth teams to juniors and even adult leagues, hung from all walls and surrounded the empty sheet of ice. And the lobby, although old and worn, held several display cases that were adorned with obvious pride, containing memorabilia from the boy's early beginnings in hockey.

I won't go as far as to say that I could feel the ghosts of hockey past whispering to me, as that might be a bit melodramatic, but I must admit that I still pimpled up a bit when I thought of the young Modano playing his Squirt and PeeWee games in the old barn. 

As many of you have probably realized already, there exists a supple gooey sub-layer of my stoic and hardened veneer.  Sometimes the weenie in me tends to show a bit.

And finally . . .

Not to ignore the stalker tendencies that I have, I was also able to determine the location of the home presumably occupied by the parents of Mike Modano.  Jumping to conclusions, I figured this to also be the boyhood home.  It sat just a mile or so from the ice rink, well within striking distance.

Yes.  I did the drive-by.  I know you would expect nothing less of me.

Admittedly, the drive-by was a little anti-climatic.  The boyhood home of Mike Modano turned out to be a well-tended bungalow of significant age, situated amongst other aging homes in an unpretentious neighborhood not terribly unlike my very own. 

I suppose that I had expected the parents to live in some sort of opulent dwelling or maybe even a mansion, given the success of their son, but was surprised to find that this wasn't the case at all.  In fact, if the truth is to be told, I found it somewhat comforting to think that I probably won't need to remove my yard cars if my own son is ever able to climb the hockey ladder and fail to buy me my mansion. 

Still, it was a little weird, but we all know that weird is what I thrive upon.

And that, kids, is all I have for today.  Not my best, but all I can do with minimal sleep brought on by a calling from our government . . .