A German hockey fan in Hockeytown

Thursday April 10, 2008 @ 11:51 AM EDT

Thorsten currently plays wealthy casino owner, Zach Slater, in ABC’s daytime drama, All My Children. For that role, he received a Daytime Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Lead Actor” in 2006. He has also appeared in films, The Silencers, Deadly Desire, and The Bone Collector. An avid rugby and hockey fan, Kaye will chronicle the Detroit Red Wings run to the Stanley Cup.


Welcome everyone to my blog, and thank you for visiting. If you know me and you’ve seen some of my work, you probably know that I’m a huge Red Wings fan – in fact, whenever I have the chance to sneak in a Red Wings logo somewhere in a scene, I jump at the opportunity.


To start with though, I figured I would let you know just how I got into the game.


I grew up in Germany when I was a boy, and my family and I moved to England when I was only six years old. I was playing soccer and running track (I still enjoy soccer), but when I came to the States and started watching hockey, I couldn’t stop.


When I was in grad school in Detroit, even then, in the early 90s when I was there, I remember the passion people had for the sport and just how much they loved their team and I couldn’t help but fall in love as well. In Detroit, it’s incredible how much they – how much we, I should say – love our team.


I mean, they put a Red Wings jersey on the statue in front of the courthouse, just to show support!


Now, I played a little hockey when I was a kid, but any aspirations I might have had for playing in the league, I realize now that I would’ve been a real longshot had I continued. You see these guys, and you don’t realize how big these guys are until you actually see them up close, how fast they are, and the kind of skill they possess.


I have this argument all the time with people, you’ve heard it, I’m sure: it’s the experts and the fans who say the hardest thing in sports is to attempt to hit a baseball. To them I say: you try skating – not running, skating – 30 miles an hour, while handling a puck only inches in diameter, with some huge pissed-off guy, say a guy like Chris Pronger, hanging on your shoulders.


Try to pull something like that, and then we’ll talk. You’ll see just how talented they are.


The second thing I love about this game is the fact that these athletes are the best sort of people in all of sports. I’ve been around athletes a fair amount, and you don’t have athletes in any other sport like you do in hockey. These players, they’re so down-to-earth, they are the kinds of guys who will come have a beer with the fans, the kind who are regular blue-collar guys, humble and genuine away from the arena. They like steak and beer. They laugh and they take the time to listen to the fans, to sign the extra autograph or to pose for just one more photo.


Luc Robitaille, I had the opportunity to spend some time with him, and what’s most impressive about a guy like Robitaille is you have someone at the top of his game, an incredible athlete who scored over 600 goals in the best hockey league in the world, and he’s just sitting there, normal, talking with people and having a good time with his fans.


That’s incredible.


And it isn’t just away from the arena. I mean, you watch games, and never, not at intermission, not after the game, not before it, do you see a player bad-mouthing someone or some other team. They’re always complementing the other guy’s effort.


No other athlete does that, they always put the other team down. Hockey, it’s a gentleman’s game. It’s a self-cleansing game, a game with room for fighting, with room for both Alex Ovechkin and Darren McCarty; both Bob Probert and Wayne Gretzky…


How amazing is that?


So I have two kids now, and when I watch the games, they’re right there with me. I dress them up in their gear, and we sit down and watch our favorite team. Like I said, I went to school in Detroit, so I still have a place out there, and when I’m back I always try to get back to see a game or two.


Back when I was in school, the Wings weren’t doing all that great, but it was getting close to that great season in 1995, and the rest of them that followed.


Here is what I’m hoping for this season: the Ducks get a lot of the attention for being the returning champions, and the Sharks get a lot of people talking because of the run they went on to finish the regular season. I’m hoping that people will just leave us alone, won’t talk to much about us or predict anything.


In fact, even with the President’s Trophy, I was almost hoping that we wouldn’t win it. Because home ice, I don’t even know what that does. The only time you see the advantage is in Game 7, and anyone can win Game 7.


There’s no more bad teams anymore, even from the very beginning, any given night you can win or lose.


That’s why, even though I don’t like to admit it, I’m nervous.


I mean, we didn’t do that well against the Central Division this season. You hear people talking about how the Wings are lucky because they’re in a “weak” division, but that isn’t the case. Their record vs.the Northwest and the Pacific Divisions was WAY better than their record vs. the Central.


No matter what people are saying, Nashville is a good team, and this series will be hard-fought, to be sure.


What I do like about this first round matchup is that the time difference and the travel won’t be an issue, for the first time in a long time. And of course, they have a dilemma like we do: they have two good goalies. One hasn’t been playing well and the other isn’t nearly so experienced, which means they’ll have some questions and some difficult choices to make, and hopefully we’ll be able to take advantage of that situation. For us, I have confidence in Hasek.


I also like the fact that this season, we’ve got a little more size. We’ve got some big boys on our roster. Franzen is getting there, he’s become a hell of a player, Lilja is a big boy, he hits, Cleary isn’t big but he works and then you have guys like Aaron Downie and Darren McCarty, who I don’t think anyone will fool around with.


I’m glad McCarty is back, and I’m glad he got his first point in the final game of the season It’s going to take time for him to completely get his legs, but I think he’s ready to work, and that’s what matters.


You know, it’s amazing – you take a guy like McCarty who was basically out of hockey only a few months ago, and now he’s back in, and not only is he in, but he’s competing for a roster spot with the regular season’s top team.


That’s the cool thing about hockey players – I’ve thought about this subject for years, in fact, I want to go back to school to write my doctorate on this, on evolving roles within sports and entertainment – you look at Chelios and see how his game has changed, how he has re-invented himself. Chelios, he isn’t crashing around in the corners like a maniac like he used to be, he’s smarter, he uses his skills in different ways and he’s thriving in his new role.


And if McCarty is going to succeed, he’s going to have to reinvent himself. But I believe he will.


But back to this series. If we can work through this first round, I will feel a lot more comfortable. The first round to me is the scariest. I don’t know how deep we are anymore, I mean, we were deep but we’ve got some injuries. It’s been good seeing the young players continue to develop: Meech stepped up, Abdelkader and Helm look good, and before he was injured Kopecky was playing his best hockey of the season.


I think it’s going to come down to goaltending and injuries, and hopefully, our injuries are all behind us.


Thanks for reading. I’ll be watching tonight, and I’ll be back with something soon.


- TK

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