No one should be writing this story, and you shouldn’t be reading it. This narrative should not exist for
Adam Wainwright Authentic Jersey one simple reason: The Palace of Auburn Hills should not exist — at least not in the way we have come to know it.
The Palace should have been an abject failure, run into the ground by ambitious but well-intentioned people who, truth be told, really didn’t know what they were doing. It should be an abandoned site. A mushy, ruinous pit. A parking lot overgrown with weeds. A crumbling
http://www.officialavalancheauthentic.com/Andreas_Martinsen_Jersey structure, or perhaps one already done in by the wrecking ball. A faded memory and the subject of our ridicule and scorn.
“Oh, that?” we might tell the kids in the backseat as we whiz past the Lapeer Road exit on I-75. “That used to be where the Pistons played. They called it The Palace.”
It was, it is and it remains — at least for a while longer — the Palace of Auburn Hills, the home of the Detroit Pistons that will turn 29 on Aug. 13 but still looks like a teenager. Like an ingénue who burst onto the scene and has kept her good looks while growing old with grace and poise, the Palace should be celebrated for the rich life it has lived heading into its final Pistons game tonight.
Sure, it has been home to the Pistons, who launched the stadium with a bang by winning NBA championships in their first two seasons there. Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand performed there. Ron Artest brawled there. Gordie Howe
Ben Smith Youth Jersey skated his last shift there.
But we can’t forget about the building itself. We shouldn’t say farewell without remembering that, long ago, this structure set a shining example of what a sports arena should be. It’s an architectural triumph that has been copied the world over.
The funny thing is that it never should have turned out this well. Tom Wilson, the former longtime Pistons president and chief executive who was in charge of
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So why didn’t it fail?
The short answer: Bill Davidson. The long answer: The Pistons’ late owner was smart enough to know what he didn’t know.
“I think part of his genius was letting other people do it,” Wilson said. “He said, ‘At my age, I don’t know anything about this business. I don’t want to learn it. I’m going to count on you guys to sort of get it done.’ He turned it over to us, and we had a very small team of people.
