| The Detroit News
He calls himself “one of those ’90s kids,” who learned the game of hockey by watching the four-time Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings from 1997-2008.
Born in 1985 in Detroit and raised in Trenton, Doug Plagens turned his Red Wings’ fandom into a play-by-play position with the Florida Panthers and joined a list of Detroit-area hockey fans who have full-time jobs in the National Hockey League a generation after the Red Wings were in their heyday. The list includes:
►Red Wings forward Vladislav Namestnikov, who spent time in the Detroit dressing room with his uncle Slava Kozlov, one of the famous Russian Five.
►Blackhawks prospect and former Red Wings draft pick Alec Regula, whose father Chet was the team’s dentist for 29 years.
►Seattle Kraken’s Everett Fitzhugh, who grew up in Detroit listening to Red Wings’ games and became the first Black NHL team broadcaster.
Plagens’ rise to the top of his broadcast profession began with his first trip to Joe Louis Arena at age 4 to watch the Minnesota North Stars and continued with subsequent visits downtown with his family as longtime season ticket holders. His father’s first cousin, Douglas G. Plagens, is a team physician with the Red Wings, specializing in general orthopedics.
Among Plagens’ highlights were the Cup-clinching games at home in 1997 against the Philadelphia Flyers and 2002 against the Washington Capitals.
“I remember being at the game in 1997 and my dad (a policeman) was born in September of 1955, just a few months after the last Stanley Cup,” Plagens said of the Red Wings breaking the 42-year championship drought. “I’m thinking, Wow, this is something in my dad’s lifetime he’s never seen. That made it that much more special to enjoy it with him in the arena.
“I remember driving out of the parking lot and people were lining the street and high-fiving you as you drove by in your car. It was a scene like nothing I had ever seen in my life up until then. I was in sixth grade and when you’re in sixth grade, the single most important thing to you is that your favorite team is winning the Stanley Cup.”
The only other game that compares for Plagens was the Darren McCarty-Claude Lemieux brawl on March 26, 1997. The Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche were meeting for the last time before the playoffs and were on a “collision course” after Lemieux’s hit on Kris Draper in Game 6 of the 1996 Western Conference finals left Draper with a broken jaw, fractured cheekbone, broken nose and damage to his right orbital bone.
“I remember being at school and knowing that I was going to the game that night,” Plagens said. “All the hype, listening to the old WDFN on the drive there, walking through the concrete tunnel into the Joe. The place was jammed pack for the warmups, the buzz, the electricity was off the charts. Everyone was in their seats waiting for the fireworks.”
Plagens’ on-ice highlight was being a defenseman with the Trenton High School team which won a state championship in 2003 under the guidance of now retired coach Michael Turner, the all-time leader in career victories with 629 wins and 11 state titles in 28 years.
“Coach Turner built a special culture there, to be the best representative of the team and city,” said Plagens, who celebrated the 4-0 win over Davison in the final at Compuware Arena by telling Channel 4’s State Champs Show, “It’s awesome. I’m going to Disneyland.”
“The expectation was to go out and win a state title. In my only year there, we had 11 seniors and were No. 1 in the state. We knew it was championship or bust with that team.”
After graduating from Trenton, Plagens earned a bachelor’s degree in communication from Lake Forest College north of Chicago and a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Syracuse University, whose alumni include Bob Costas, Ann Arbor’s Mike Tirico and Sean McDonough.
He spent seven years in the minors with the American Hockey League’s Lake Erie Monsters and the ECHL’s Idaho Steelheads and is now entering his sixth season with the Panthers.
“People always ask me about growing up a Red Wings fan and working for the Panthers,” Plagens said. “I wouldn’t trade my Red Wings’ fandom for anything because it’s what helped me develop my love for the game. It’s full-on Panthers now but I still keep a close eye on the Red Wings.
“Steve Yzeman is putting all the right pieces in place with the team in transition. In my opinion, once they take the next step and he gets another nice draft pick or two to put with their first-rounders in the mix, the turnaround is going to be pretty quick.”
mfalkner@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @falkner