On ownership, legacy, and No. 91 finally heading to the rafters in Detroit

The Detroit Red Wings and Sergei Fedorov will finally have their mea culpa.

In sports, history isn’t written by the victors.

And while winning certainly helps power and influence, in the end, legacy and history are typically most defined by those with the means to buy and own those franchises.

In the NFL, there’s a new documentary out about the Dallas Cowboys notably named the America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys, and “the gambler,” is of course Jerry Jones.

It’s more than 10 hours of storytelling about a franchise, with the main subject, Jones, happily signing off on it’s creation in the ever-lasting battle for attention despite having not won a championship in close to 30 years.

Its the most brash version of an owner controlling a legacy and history, but Jones’ is simply the most vocal tip of a legacy iceberg where those who own a franchise get to define how and what we remember most in the public sphere.

Sergei Fedorov’s long-waiting jersey retirement with the Detroit Red Wings is a perfect example of that.

Fedorov is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest player in franchise history. Consider for a team with as much legacy as Detroit has, Fedorov is the only player to win the Hart Trophy as a Red Wing since the league expanded past six teams in 1967.

Fedorov scored 400 goals with the franchise, had 954 points, and averaged 1.05 points per game, the fourth-most in franchise history. He was also part of the famous Russian Five, hockey’s version of a Russian supergroup that through defection and success, greatly helped shape how the game is played today.

He was also downright fun to watch.

For everything Fedorov did on the ice, No. 91 should have been in the rafters a long time ago.

But Fedorov’s off-ice decisions, business ones, hurt his relationship with the person, and family, that ultimately decide which numbers hang above the ice 82 nights per season.

Fedorov held out for the first 59 games of the 1997-98 season, after Detroit had won the Stanley Cup, and then signed an offer sheet from the Carolina Hurricanes on Feb. 26, 1998 that was loaded with bonuses. Detroit matched the offer sheet, but the deal came with a massive financial headache for the Ilitch family, where Fedorov was paid $28 million that season for just 21 games of work.

Fedorov then left Detroit for the Anaheim Ducks in the summer of 2003, reportedly turning down an offer to become the NHL’s highest-paid player to stay in Detroit.

It added to the complicated legacy for Fedorov in Detroit, the departure was messy, and rich men, and women, tend to hold grudges for a long time.

No. 91 was part of Red Wings history, it was never available — although Daniel Sprong did tell me he double checked and asked about it — but it was hidden away and would never be on display in the rafters next to Red Wings who did it the right way, like Steve Yzerman or Nicklas Lidström.

Mike Ilitch passed away in 2017, but the family continued to respect his grudge toward Fedorov for close to eight years, before this week, the Red Wings announced they would retired No. 91 on Jan. 12 this upcoming season, part of a 100th anniversary celebration.

It’s rather crazy that Fedorov’s proper enshrinement with the franchise he most represented, will come a decade after he was enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

But history is messy, and controlling the optics of that are one of the things you can buy as a billionaire sports owner. Look at what happened with the Cowboys and Jimmy Johnson in the Ring of Honor, where ownership was able to define in-stadium legacy for close to three decades before doing it’s best to look like the good guy in the final mea culpa.

Retired numbers, in my view, are supposed to be how we connect new fans to the past. When you take your kids to the game, or someone new to the sport, they look up and see a number and name and ask “who was that?” and then, like a legendary hero, they’ll be talked about with reverence.

The Ilitch family did its best to hide that history, that moment for as long as possible. To cut off some of the oral history of Fedorov’s greatness over what happened on the ice.

Now that can naturally happen, younger fans and newer fans, after Jan. 12, will be able to look up and wonder, learn a bit, and maybe look up YouTube videos of No. 91 to see such a vital part of franchise history.

Oh, and about Jan. 12. I can’t help but notice who the Red Wings are playing that day… the Carolina Hurricanes, the team that officially started the whole rift with an offer sheet in the first place.