Neal Rubin

Commentary: The Red Wings T-shirt that wasn't

Pat Miller wanted me to know that he's still flying Detroit Red Wings flags in the windows of his Jeep, long after the victory parade that didn't happen.

He also wanted me to know that he didn't pay for them.

I confess, I'm pretty much over the Wings' loss to Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup finals. Would have loved to see them win, would have checked out the parade, didn't, couldn't, wait till next year.

I'd never have thought to write about them now -- or to track down the T-shirts we'll never get to wear -- if Miller hadn't called to proclaim his loyalty. At least, that's what he said he was doing. I think he was mostly gloating.

Miller says he was pumping gas at a station near his house in Dearborn a few days after the last game when he saw a guy snatch two window flags from the back seat of his car and slam-dunk them into a trash can. Jeez, Miller said, if you don't want those, can I take 'em?

Flying the flag -- or not

Go ahead, the guy said. He paid $25 for the pair the day of the game, flew them for maybe 12 hours, and was so disgusted by the loss that he yanked them out of his windows that night before he went to bed.

The way Miller sees it, the Red Wings made money just by hosting the game. Bars sold beer regardless of the final score. "The biggest loser," he contends, was the fan who bought the flags.

But that guy is small change compared to Todd Lamb.

It's not that Lamb lost huge piles of money, even if he did have 20 people on the clock watching the game. It's that he didn't get to earn the money from 20,000 T-shirts -- or more.

Lamb's dad, Mike, founded American Silkscreen & Embroidery in Farmington Hills in 1976. "We would have run all night," he says, if only the Red Wings had stopped one of those Penguins goals and snuck in another of their own.

Fresh troops would have arrived in the morning, and then everyone would have gone home at noon to get a little rest before the reorders hit.

By that afternoon, they'd probably have been back at their battle stations. In the T-shirt business, Lamb says, "You need to get as much out there in that first wave as you can."

Back in 1997, when the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 52 years, "we printed 60,000-plus units in 2 1/2 days. Nobody slept."

The Detroit Tigers might have been that big for the World Series in 2006, except that ... oops, they lost.

"We're used to it," Lamb says. "It was the same for Michigan State this spring." Everyone in the shop gathered around the television like it was a campfire, and then MSU fell to North Carolina in the men's basketball title game and they all shrugged and headed for their cars.

No title, no shirt

At least the '09 Red Wings won the Western Conference. People must want sportswear to commemorate that, right?

Nope. Once you've won a few Cups, a meager conference championship isn't worth a single shirt.

The officially licensed shirt that never was featured the winged wheel, the trophy and the words "2009 Stanley Cup Champions Detroit Red Wings." It was red. The back included the final scores of the games, so it was never even completed.

First thing Monday morning, Lamb's team tore down what was left of the setup from the game Friday night. Then it was back to the normal routine: Corporate work, even if that's a harder sell during a recession, along with the dependable teams and schools.

The Red Wings are owned by Mike Ilitch, the Little Caesars pizza baron. Once the remnants of the loss were swept away at American Silkscreen, the crew started printing promotional T-shirts for the employees of another well-known company.

Cruel world, getting crueler. The customer was Domino's.

nrubin@detnews.com (313) 222-1874