Top Brass, Brass Poles and Capology

Coming soon to The Joe: This guy and his red bikini

If you want to sincerely regret donating the next 5 minutes of your life to a worthless cause, tap #redwings into Twitter and feast your eyes on the mountain of shit that starts to pile up.  Not only will you witness an amazing amount of redundancy in somewhat menial updates like Semin’s waffling between Pittsburgh and Detroit, you’ll also get to enjoy (and that’s a true bastardization of the term), every random asshole with a keyboard’s runon, poorly punctuated opinion on the smallest of Wings dealings.

… Shane Doan#NHLFreeAgency Update: #NHL #Hockey #SJSharks#Coyotes#RedWings #Canucks #NJDevils #Avs

I could stop here.

I won’t.

I know this because I’ve spent my last two weeks nervously tracking the free agent market, pacing the living room floor, scraping the labels off beer bottles and hoping for the best.  My pathetic state reached an all-time high during Pa-suter-gate when I risked life and limb driving down I-35 refreshing my iPhone for 3 hours the first day of free agency.  It’s continued in this unfortunate state through less frequent but equally ridiculous rituals like checking in during my 4am lap to the pisser, the elevator ride at work, the walk from the car to the office door or during conference calls.

I’m not proud of this.

I aim to change it.

…and here’s the thought that got things moving today: What if we just didn’t do another damn thing this offseason?  What if time stood still like during one of those awful Match.com first dates and Kenny didn’t make any more moves.  Utensils down.  Hands up.  Step away from the cutting board.  You too, Ryan.

Two goalies, 5 defensemen, 13 forwards.  We roll the fucking dice and see what happens.  No more Doan speculation.  No more crapping myself about a 3-year deal for Semin worth a million less/year than Nick was making.  No more Jay-Bo discussions or hopeless pipe dreams about Ryan and Nash finding their way to Motown.

Done.

All of it.

We’re just sitting here as a fanbase, unified in our fears, sweating our collective tits off in a poorly air conditioned office park, having called it quits and coming to terms with the season ahead.

At first, that thought is terrifying.

…and then you realize that we’re sitting, theoretically, on $16.8 million in cap space that was supposed to go to some mangorgeous 20-something blue chipper but instead went unspent.  Being a loyal Wings supporter and longtime Ilitch fan, my assumption is that every year, Mr. I takes the entire cap’s worth of money, turns it into gold coins and saves it in a big ass room, kinda like in Duck Tales.  Use it or lose it, he’s got the money set aside and he’d rather put it to good use than see it go unspent.

Most seasons, those are “happy coins” whose purpose is to delight the fans through free agent signings and the maintenance of a well-constructed roster.  This season, life looks a little different, and as I’ve resigned that there is nothing left on the open market worth refreshing a twitter feed for during my late-night walk through the house, I’ve decided to look at other ways to spend Mr I’s unspent budget for the 2011-2012 season.

The best news of the day is that $16.8 million still goes a long way these days.  Despite the down economy, the ever-present threat of stagflation and Europe’s ongoing debt crisis, a figure like $16.8 million allows one the creative license to explore how money actually can buy happiness. That happiness, however, needs to extend over an entire season, where 41 games will be played at The Joe. With a stated capacity of 20,066 we’re left with 822,706 theoretical in-house visits. For the purposes of numbers-cooking, we’ll assume all these games are sell-outs. Just go with it.

We’re left with a shade over $20 per visitor every game this year.  $20 to flat-out blow on every man, woman, child and visiting Patrick Kane family member who walks through the door.  We need to spend that money wisely. It needs to go to a bankable, no-miss grand slam…an expense so sure to delight that we’d ensure full houses the entire year and delighted fans throughout.

Naturally, I’m talking about strippers.

While I’m off the market and no longer a frequenter of the brass pole, I recall from my younger days that there is a profession where well-sculpted “dancers” take their clothes off for money.  In my experience, the going rate for a lapdance is around $20.  Bear in mind, that is rack rate and assumes we’re not getting some kind of genius-grade Kenny Holland bulk deal.

…though the way things are going right now, I’d be half-terrified that we start negotiations with the tier-one strippers and end up bringing back some 40 year old now-cougar who was only average her first lap through the system….but I digress.

Take a step back and think about this – an ENTIRE ARENA full of Wings fans passing the second intermission getting a lap dance at AT THE SAME TIME.  It would be almost as visually stunning as that teddy bear toss up in Calgary.  Is it family friendly?  No, but as an economic stimulus (intentional) concept for the city of Detroit, think about all of the down-on-their-luck strippers who would IMMEDIATELY get 41 nights of work out of this. Gym memberships would go through the roof with all the potential job hunters looking to get in on the action.  GNC franchises would spring up on every corner.  Banana hammock stores and high heel shops would clear out all their inventories.  Bank fees would shoot through the roof as people would want to make sure they had cash on-hand to tip.  We’re putting America back to work, people!

There are thousands of other ways to spend $20 per night that I’m open to hearing.  In theory, $20 should get you at least a beer and a half  per game, plus maybe a just-about-to-expire hot pretzel.  …not a bad alternative, especially for the kids who should probably be drinking beer by themselves in the concourse instead of watching their mom get spun upside down by a 6-footer named Slade anyway.

Like it or not, it’s time to stop mindlessly chasing these dreams of big-time free agents and get down to more practical matters…like how to spend $16.8 million over the course of a 41-game home season.  On strippers.  Or not.

You got a better idea?  Let’s hear it.