Abel to Yzerman
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Forming The Official A2Y Rivalry Depth Chart: Round 2
by IwoCPO on 08/18/08 at 05:42 PM ET
Comments (30)
Oh the anticipation. A2Y interns straight from Marquette have been scouring the state, soliciting your views on our next entry in the Official A2Y Rivalry Depth Chart. Tonite: the Blues. First, a reminder of how we developed The Formula.
Six categories, each with a 1-5 numeric point value.
Quality of team (QT). Depth of hatred the fans of that team have for us and the Wings (HF, for “hate factor). Past playoff adventures (PPA). Quality of bloggers who may choose to say bad things about us (BQ). Opportunity that team has to make us sad during the regular season (RSSF, for “regular season sadness factor"). Miscellanilarity. Figure it out.
Colorado. St. Louis. Chicago. Pittsburgh. Nashville. Columbus. Toronto. Dallas. Anaheim. Carolina.
The Bitter Bitch Blues fans sobbed their way into contention on the Rivalry Depth Chart. Certainly it can’t be the quality of the team or even the hate factor, which is as one-sided as any we’ll see over the next several weeks. As we pointed out with Denver, in order to earn a high score in HF, it must be nearly equal. Both fan bases must be warmed by hatred of the other.
That’s just not the case with this one.
HF: Oh, they hate them some Wings. But us? It’s a point and laugh scenario played out over and over. Regular season, playoffs, offseason. Each Cup sends the BBBs into a fetal state. Every move the Wings make is met with teeth gnashing in St. Loo. Scotty Bowman, Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan, Steve Duchesne, Dallas Drake, Chris Osgood, Aaron Downey have all won Cups with Detroit following stints in St. Louis and that...man, that just burns them up. Examples will follow when we discuss the BQ (Quality of Blogs) factor. As for HF? It’s hard to score them too high. We like the Blues. Back when they were making the playoffs they were a good warmup for the conference finals. Hate? One sided. Our science gives the Blues an HF of 2.
QT: Everyone in the Central has improved. The Wings: Hossa! The bastard, thieving Hawks: Huet, youngster development, Lang’s hair, Bowman. The BJs: Torres, Umberger, Huselius. Even Bubba, to the joy of all 2 of their corporate sponsors, appears to be a bit stronger than they were last year. What have the Blues done to stay competitive? A whole lot of jack squat. They will finish last, by a long shot, in the Division That Gary Built. Brad Boyes is their one legitimate scorer, while St. Paulie the Girl and Phil Mickelson Tkachuk play out the string. Mason and Legace will battle all year for the starter’s job, dividing the brittle bitch Blues fan base. They’ll be out of playoff contention by January...and the Wings will probably still split the season series. Why? I have no idea. Despite the wide gulf in talent, the little Blues play us tough in the regular season. A prime reason they’re considered a rival at all. Still. Our science provides them a QT of 1.
PPA: Past Playoff Adventures is where this gets interesting. Each one of those adventures has lent a little to the special place the Wings hold in the hearts of the BBBs. 87/88: The Wings steal Jacques Demers away from St. Louis. Naturally the whining began. Litigation. Lawsuits. Horrible words and gestures. Sobbing to anyone who would listen, the Blues tried to have the league ban Demers from coaching for three years. Unfortunately for the little tykes, that was laughed at and, woops, the Demers-led Wings knocked them out in the Division Finals the next season. Revenge belonged to the Blues three years later when the Wings choked away a 3-1 series lead.
But, oh how Steve Yzerman redeemed the ‘91 team five years later.
And that’s where the fun started. 1996: The Captain picks up the puck at center ice after Gretzky bobbles it, glides up the boards a few strides then blasts one by Jon Casey and straight into history. 1997: The Captain again, with a speech for the ages; reminding the Wings that losing to the Blues, of all teams, would have been a defeat they’d remember the rest of their lives. 1998: Chris Pronger takes a puck to the heart, a scary moment, but thankfully one that didn’t define Pronger’s career. His dirty play, illiteracy, shady departure from Edmonton and his overall status as a frigging idiot did that. 2002: more Pronger and more Yzerman. This was classic Pronger. Takes a run at Yzerman, but is so immobile and lumbering that 19 turns it around on him, literally. Pronger leaps, wrecks his knee, stays on the ice long enough to take the slashing penalty that led to a Shanahan PPG, then limps down the tunnel. See ya Sasquatch.
Yzerman’s 1996 slapshot alone would give the Blues a PPA of at least 3, but you throw in the other fun details and we’re looking at a 5. Great stuff with the Blues in postseasons past. Too bad we won’t be reliving any of those anytime soon.
RSSF: As stated above, the Blues do have a nasty tendency to bring with them a cloud of Regular Season Sadness. For whatever reason, the Wings play consistently down to their level. It’s maddening, but valuable in that it allows the BBBs something to cling to when the inevitable trash talk starts. We’ll throw them a scientific 3 in RSSF.
Ah, yes. Now the good stuff.
BQ: If we were to measure Quality of Bloggers (BQ) by numbers alone, the Bitter Bitch Blues fans would pale compared to some of the other teams striving for the upper half of the A2Y Rivalry Depth Chart. Oh, I suppose they have a decent amount of blogs. But I read only one, and it’s great for all sorts of entertainment. St. Louis Game Time is brilliant in its simplicity. Very few bells and whistles but, and I’m being mostly honest, pretty good writing and...a frigging ton of venom all directed at you. They absolutely despise the Wings, Wing fans and the very basic fact that Detroit dominates St. Louis.
I’ve referenced this post before, and I’ll do so again now. There is no piece of writing anywhere on Gore’s timeless invention that so eloquently describes one hockey fan’s hatred of the Wings better than Sean Gallagher’s ode to the Wings on 4 June. We continue to salute you, and laugh at you. It is pure gold.
We don’t care about you and we’ll never care enough about your team to bookmark your team’s derivative bloggers at any point, much less when our team is good and yours is not.
Darn Sean. That keeps making me sad. You made me sad again.
That post alone ramps the Blues up in the BQ category. A2Y science offers a score of 3.
From the miscellaneous category, I offer you Andy Strickland and Manny Legace. They go hand-in-hand because everytime Dwayne Klessel’s groupie throws some Wing-related feces at the wall, you can assume his “source” is The Mouth. In some respects, it’s nice to see because we’re all still shaken by Legace’s suggestion of suicide following his choke job in Game 6 against Edmonton in ‘06. We’d never wish that on him. We did want him to leave though. And he did. Once he landed in St. Louis, he and Strickland obviously struck up a BFF situation that led to Manny apparently feeding him implosive rumours. Strickland struck out again when he said his “sources” told him Lidstrom’s knee injury from last Spring was much more serious than reported. He scored with his Bowman to Hawks prediction, and deserves credit, but his nimrod status remains. Misc: 2.
A final tally of 16. Mediocrity. Nothing more. Nothing less. The Blues will provide fodder for the juvenility that defines the 19. They’ll make for some interesting regular season games. But a true rival? Nope.
Next week? The poultry. You ready for them? I hope so. Because Earl Sleek is ready for you. He offered a very good take on why we should consider Anaheim our Top Rival, breaking it down into players we should--and in at least two cases do--dislike.
There’s still plenty of other reasons for Wings fans to hate the Ducks (I didn’t even mention the yappy mouth of Corey Perry), but I think this fivesome might prove as strong a rivalry argument as any. I’m hopeful that Detroit fans found this post as angering to read as I found it pleasing to write, because you know what that means. They’ll be licking their lips for the next matchup, their chance for postseason revenge.
We’ll respond to Sleek’s post next week, although I’m sure the comments will pile up at BoC well before then.
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Comments
But the Blues might still improve for next season
Snarky, Baroque. But I think there’s a bigger picture we’re missing. It’s highly probable that the Blues will be better next season for a single, simple reason: they really can’t be any worse.
Posted by Gabriel from San Diego, CA on 08/18/08 at 05:36 PM ET
Earl, “yawn”, should focus on the Duck ticket prices. That makes us Wing fans angry. As to a rivalry...not so much.
Bitter Blues!...Manny summed it up best when he said...awww, who the hell cares what Manny says.
Posted by Rumbear from just back from catalina..... on 08/18/08 at 05:37 PM ET
Earl, “yawn”, should focus on the Duck ticket prices. That makes us Wing fans angry. As to a rivalry...not so much.
There wasn’t so much yawning in the BoC comments during the 2007 WCF, but I suppose that’s ancient history.
Ticket prices? Really? I guess I could have saved some ink then (though I don’t know how our “angering” pricing compares to the other rival candidates).
Posted by Earl Sleek from Los Angeles, CA on 08/18/08 at 05:44 PM ET
I realize you had to include the Blues in your project for all the things you mention, Chief. But a Red Wings - Blues rivalry?
The actual analogy would be the Wings are the hammer, the Blues are the nail.
Posted by Big Al from SE MI on 08/18/08 at 05:47 PM ET
Hawks-Wings is the top rivalry in all of hockey, period. This is a debate borne of the dog days of August and nothing better to do.
Posted by LVOdds from LV on 08/18/08 at 07:17 PM ET
It’s highly probable that the Blues will be better next season for a single, simple reason: they really can’t be any worse.
Au contraire, my dear Gabriel. It is always possible to be worse.
Exhibit A: The Detroit Lions.
Exhibit B: The Detroit Tigers flammable bullpen - and combustible starting staff, for that matter.
Unless they have a totally pointless season, worse is always possible, even if highly unlikely. 
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 08/18/08 at 07:51 PM ET
Don’t forget the fact that Blues fans would chant, “USA! USA!” when the Wings came to town with the Russian 5 in the late 90’s, because, obviously, Detroit was a team full of commies...They also chant, “Deeee-troit sucks” with religious fervour, and actually preceded the Blackhawks in starting that particular chant.
Mostly, my take on the rivalry is that it was based upon old Norris Division slugfests of the 80’s and 80’s (Kelly Chase, Gino Cavallini, Sergio Momesso, etc. vs. Probert, Kocur, and, back in the day, Basil McRae), the almost-as-good-as-the-Hawks-and-Wings Brett Hull/Brendan Shanahan/Curtis Joseph era in the mid 90’s, and the Blues’ misguided swagger under Joel Quennville and Chrissy Pronger in the early 00’s. That, and the Blues’ present sense of entitlement, fueled by the Stricklands and Jeff Gordons of the world, who remain convinced that the Blues are a player away from their rightful place in hockey.
It’s not necessarily about how the Blues have given the Wings some runs for their money in 96, 97, and 02 as much as it is about the level of on and off-ice venom that the Blues and their fans seem to toss the Wings’ way, as if the Wings kicked their puppies or something.
It’s a case of having a bitter rival that doesn’t see you as a bitter rival, and getting more pissed off because of that. The Blackhawks, Red Wings, and Predators get some serious-ass anger sent their way by St. Louis, and those teams tend to wonder why Blues players are hurtling themselves into the boards as they get the hell out of the way.
Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/18/08 at 08:16 PM ET
The mickelson-tkachuk reference was classic.
Posted by rwingscup19 from dallas on 08/18/08 at 09:25 PM ET
the almost-as-good-as-the-Hawks-and-Wings Brett Hull/Brendan Shanahan/Curtis Joseph era in the mid 90’s,
I remember watching these games on Fox and hating every one of them, and not only because of the telecast. It seemed like we lost every game, but then we beat them and stole their best guys...yikes.
Posted by Osrt on 08/19/08 at 12:25 AM ET
Yeah, being demolished by Hull & Oates in the early 90s ‘Chuck’ Norris Division, especially when one of them had been OURS and we let him go in a trade that looked *okay* at the time (and turned out to be pretty terrible in the end) really did suck. But all that fades into insignificance from the other side of four Stanley Cups. So as for a genuine rivalry with the Blues, I’d say we just give every fan in St. Louis a case of road flares and an effigy of Sasquatch, and then move on to a rivalry that lasts past April. Mediocre, indeed.
But it’ll be interesting to hear the hogwash that Strickland and Legace swill this year, as every year.
The only mystery is why a team so chock-full of wings (lacking legitimate playmaking centers) would hate the Wings. Identity crisis?
Posted by AndrewFromAnnArbor from nowhere near St. Louis and not nearly as Blue on 08/19/08 at 03:22 AM ET
The really cool Blues fans manage to get invites to all the best parties, though:
Posted by O-Joe on 08/19/08 at 06:06 AM ET
LOL @ Earl:
They’ll be licking their lips for the next matchup, their chance for postseason revenge.
Yeah, we’re just dying for that postseason revenge, after all, four Cups since 1997 hasn’t been sweet enough.
Posted by Nathan on 08/19/08 at 08:19 AM ET
Yeah, we’re just dying for that postseason revenge, after all, four Cups since 1997 hasn’t been sweet enough.
Aw, is somebody all “paraded out”?
I can’t wait until my team’s won enough cups that I stop caring whether they win or lose a particular playoff series. Sounds magnificent.
Posted by Earl Sleek from Anaheim, CA on 08/19/08 at 09:38 AM ET
Nathan,
I agree as far as including Scott Niedermayer when he played for the New Jersey Devils as a “Wing killer”. It was a stretch on what was otherwise a really well-written post. Niedermayer’s accomplishments in the 2007 WCF stand on their own. For the record I’d consider Anaheim the top rival over the past 5 or so seasons.
Before that it was Colorado. Before that Chicago and St. Louis were tops. Before that it was probably Toronto and going back to the ‘50s it was obviously Montreal. The Wings have never had one consistent rival like Michigan-Ohio State in football. Whether the Ducks continue to be one remains to be seen but as long as Sasquatch is there the odds are good.
Any team that has Chris Pronger has a good shot at being Detroit’s biggest rival simply because he’s a douche - but a highly, highly talented douche.
Posted by Dave on 08/19/08 at 09:47 AM ET
Chief, methinks the A2Y Rivalry Depth Chart is in need of some sort of graphical representation/in-progress summary. Otherwise, I get night sweats thinking that the BBBs are ranked above my precious Snowflakes…
Put the cheddar down, back away, and get ‘er done, yo!
Posted by mudshark from Divetown, Colorado on 08/19/08 at 09:52 AM ET
Any team that has Chris Pronger has a good shot at being Detroit’s biggest rival simply because he’s a douche - but a highly, highly talented douche.
That’s actually the only reason I hated Edmonton for a while. Other than that, I don’t find Anaheim all that hate-able - although I do get annoyed because for some reason I keep confusing Giguere with Kipprusoff and mentally exchanging them between teams.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 08/19/08 at 11:48 AM ET
Other than that, I don’t find Anaheim all that hate-able - although I do get annoyed because for some reason I keep confusing Giguere with Kipprusoff and mentally exchanging them between teams.
I took it personally the year Anaheim and New Jersey teamed up to play the most unwatchable seven-game series in history and put the final nail in the coffin for watchable hockey and brought upon the rules re-examination.
Posted by HockeyJoe from NY on 08/19/08 at 12:12 PM ET
Unless they have a totally pointless season, worse is always possible, even if highly unlikely.
Even without a totally pointless season their season will likely turn out to have been totally pointless.
Posted by BobTheZee on 08/19/08 at 01:19 PM ET
Eight more of these gloating circle jerks disguised as some sort of analysis to go? Holy cow, how are you going to dig up that much new material?
Here is your template:
At one time there was sort of a rivalry. Now the other team sucks compared to the mighty wings. Now let’s make fun of their bloggers and fans.
Great. Can’t wait for more, chef.
Posted by rwhater on 08/19/08 at 02:56 PM ET
Eight more of these gloating circle jerks disguised as some sort of analysis to go? Holy cow, how are you going to dig up that much new material?
Disguised? No Clark Kents here hater, just big-balled Supermen.
This is why we had to add four new cups recently.
Posted by Osrt on 08/19/08 at 08:36 PM ET
At one time there was sort of a rivalry. Now the other team sucks compared to the mighty wings. Now let’s make fun of their bloggers and fans.
Maybe I’m alone here, but I still saw the Blackhawks as big-time rivals when they “sucked,” I still see the Blues as big-time rivals, and as far as I’m concerned, all those damn Minnesota Wild fans are still angry about 1992.
When somebody holds an on-ice grudge against you, regardless of whether they’re part of a “good team” or a “bad team,” you take their dislike seriously--if it’s a big game for them, it should be a big game for you, and you’d better keep your head on a swivel. Ol’ Dally Drake proved that on more than one occasion during Wings-Blues games over his tenure as a Blue.
When your “off day” is a team’s “defining moment” as a franchise, as several of the Blue Jackets’ wins against the Wings were this past season, the fact that they’re gonna be golfing in April doesn’t make that loss sting any less.
I dunno, maybe it’s just me being a goalie and former “enforcer” whose on-ice job is pissing people off, but I think that a rival is a rival is a rival, and if they’re not doing particularly well, that doesn’t mean that the rivalry’s dead. As far as I’m concerned, when the Leafs come to town, it’s still war, and the NHL has done its best to kill that rivalry.
If somebody doesn’t like you, it’s your job to make sure they keep hating the fact that you kick the crap out of them. That’s my take on hockey rivalries as a whole.
Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/20/08 at 12:45 AM ET
I think you just have an unusually long attention span, George. Most people don’t hold grudges because they can’t keep anything in their minds that happened more than 20 nanoseconds ago.
Although I do think you are definitely an exception where Toronto is concerned. They meet Detroit so rarely now that there is probably more interest in seeing an unfamiliar team from the exotic Eastern conference than seeing an actual rival.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 08/20/08 at 12:02 PM ET
They meet Detroit so rarely now that there is probably more interest in seeing an unfamiliar team from the exotic Eastern conference than seeing an actual rival.
Unfortunately too true.
It’s just hard to hate teams that stink. I hate teams that scare me, players that scare me because they’re so damn good or so damn sasquatchy. For teams that stink, I just scout and look for players that could/should be on our team (like Mike Fisher from Ottawa, although they don’t suck).
Posted by Osrt on 08/20/08 at 12:34 PM ET
I have to agree. Life really is too short to waste time and energy on rivalries with teams that can’t live up to their side of the rivalry. Sure, Detroit-Toronto is historical, but it’s on ice right now until MLSE gets its collective head out of its arse and starts to field a decent squad. I still have a serious hate for the Dive, but give me a few years of them being mediocre and missing the playoffs, and that’ll probably cool off to.
No, right now the candidates for our attention are out there, but the Chief’s handy tool for gauging them will help a lot if we’re to pick a rival for next season that can provide us a good challenge. I have this awful feeling it may be Chicago.
Posted by AndrewFromAnnArbor from the garage, carefully gauging my tools on 08/20/08 at 02:05 PM ET
I think you just have an unusually long attention span, George. Most people don’t hold grudges because they can’t keep anything in their minds that happened more than 20 nanoseconds ago.
Although I do think you are definitely an exception where Toronto is concerned. They meet Detroit so rarely now that there is probably more interest in seeing an unfamiliar team from the exotic Eastern conference than seeing an actual rival.
Baroque, when you sat behind the bench when Ol’ Nikolai Borschevsky tips a Bob Rouse shot behind Tim Cheveldae in the 7th game of a playoff series in 1993, you tend to have a long memory about those damn Leaf fans going crazy at the Joe.
To me, between the cultural divide that goes up like a wall between Detroit and Windsor (half the people who’ve grown up closer to Joe Louis Arena than I have root for the Leafs on the south side of the Detroit River) thanks to Hockey Night in Canada and the historical rivalry, that one’s never going to die out.
As for the rest of the teams...I have to be honest here, I don’t like a single team in the Western Conference, and any team we’ve played a playoff round against in the last five years is a “rival” by default as far as I’m concerned. This tendency to get up for every team is why my hockey-playing friends tossed me back in the net so that their welts and bruises could heal…
It’s just hard to hate teams that stink. I hate teams that scare me, players that scare me because they’re so damn good or so damn sasquatchy. For teams that stink, I just scout and look for players that could/should be on our team (like Mike Fisher from Ottawa, although they don’t suck).
Osrt, I think you just explained why the Calgary Flames make me twitchy… 
No, right now the candidates for our attention are out there, but the Chief’s handy tool for gauging them will help a lot if we’re to pick a rival for next season that can provide us a good challenge. I have this awful feeling it may be Chicago.
Andrew, given that they took Bowman, are clearly the home of the two players out of the 350 or so NHL’ers who call the Western Conference home in Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, and given that the Hawks are being declared Pittsburgh West by the media (and that they beat us five times out of eight last year), I think we’re gonna have the Hawks as our #1 rival, followed by the Duckies and Sharks (because we’ve played them in the playoffs so often, and because those games tend to involve lots of “gettin’ mean!").
Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/20/08 at 08:09 PM ET
half the people who’ve grown up closer to Joe Louis Arena than I have root for the Leafs on the south side of the Detroit River
Yeah, but you can’t forget the other half of those southwestern Ontarians who care more about geography than nationality. Every single member of my extended family in Amherstburg is a dyed-in-the-wool Wings fans ("Same city, different country,” as they say), and in a province where the Leafs are a religion (even when offerings don’t seem to please the MLSE gods enough to bring a bumper crop of hardware), that has to count for something. They’re not even ‘transplants’ in the strictest sense (unless you count Italian extraction three or four generations ago as transplantation), so they tend to be viewed as traitors by Laff Nation. You can’t imagine some of the stick their kids or those of them that play in the beer leagues get for it from their own teammates. Still didn’t stop ‘em from cheering with me and my father in ‘97, though.
Posted by AndrewFromAnnArbor from a family chock-full of bloody-minded iconoclasts on 08/21/08 at 02:31 AM ET
Aside from the cultural mess that smacking an international border down between two cities that would probably treat each other as the “town across the river” otherwise, I never did quite understand the concept that the Wings aren’t Southwestern Ontario’s “local” team.
I still wonder why ye olde front office doesn’t slap a, “They’re your Red Wings, too” ad on a Transit Windsor bus or three, given the ticket situation…
Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/21/08 at 03:06 AM ET
Aside from the cultural mess that smacking an international border down between two cities that would probably treat each other as the “town across the river” otherwise, I never did quite understand the concept that the Wings aren’t Southwestern Ontario’s “local” team.
Even state borders. It’s so funny to look at a map and see how many borders are these crazy squiggly things because they are defined by rivers, when navigable rivers have been one of the greatest uniters of people, facilitating communications and trade. The geography of Africa (which doesn’t permit as many rivers to be navigable) really inhibited exploration into many parts of the interior, whereas the Nile was the thread that joined together one of the greatest civilizations in history.
I still wonder why ye olde front office doesn’t slap a, “They’re your Red Wings, too” ad on a Transit Windsor bus or three, given the ticket situation…
I’m guessing, but maybe because the border-crossing situation is so abysmally stupid? Dumb politicians.
I haven’t been to a game live, so that probably contributes to my not feeling as strongly with respect to rivalries. I really don’t tend to hate teams that aren’t being played at the time - but I want the opponent at the moment to suffer the same fate as Prometheus, but with more pain - only to recover completely and miraculously for the next game (especially if it will benefit my team in the standings).
Although because of the internet I’ve actually started cheering a bit for Toronto, because I’ve really come to like the bloggers that I’ve wandered across on the tubes this offseason. If I didn’t “know” anyone who was a fan of the team, I wouldn’t care one way or the other as long as they lost against Detroit and beat the teams that were close to them in the standings. Because I really like reading their blogs, I’m wishing them well - also because they remind me of the futility of Cubs fans, and I can identify with that 100%.
(I have a sick feeling that Chicago will actually make it to the World Series only to fall to Tampa Bay in the most heart-rending way possible. That would be so Cubs.)
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 08/21/08 at 04:28 AM ET
Blues fans, Blackhawks fans, Predators fans, and even Blue Jackets fans come out of the woodwork for Central Division games, and when the Leafs come to town, it’s a soccer game crowd, with competing chants and at least one good drunken fight. When you go down there, you feel the hate. It makes my nasty little competitive hockey heart all warm and fuzzy, just like a cactus.
My experience with Leafs fans is pretty singular--no matter how bad the Leafs are doing, there’s a sense of entitlement to the Stanley Cup, and an assurance that Toronto will win it immediately, if not tomorrow (I mean literally here), then during the upcoming season, and the concept that Toronto must be the centre of the universe, hockey and otherwise, is something that tends to annoy the rest of Canada to no end. Wrap the popularity and New York elitism of the Yankees and the futility of the Lions into one team, and you get the Leafs.
Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/21/08 at 06:14 AM ET
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But the Blues might still improve for next season - haven’t you heard the rumours of bringing back Shanahan?
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 08/18/08 at 05:14 PM ET