"Who do you think you are, coming in here? No one wants you here!" These words were screamed by Dave "Tiger" Williams as he stood inches from cub reporter Cynthia Lambert. It was one of the first things said by a professional athlete to the twenty-two-year-old college student as she entered the Detroit Red Wings locker room at Joe Louis Arena after the team suffered a tough loss. Shaken by the verbal assault, Cynthia had to make a decision on the spot--and in front of the watchful eyes of other players and media members. Did she have it in her to weather the prejudicial storms that likely lay ahead, or should she turn tail and run? She didn't run. Instead, she stood her ground and blazed an enviable career path after landing the job of a lifetime--covering the NHL's Detroit Red Wings as the beat writer for The Detroit News. This is the autobiographical story of Cynthia Lambert's fourteen-year career in the locker room, in the press box, and all points in between, calling out pitfalls and her all-too-numerous embarrassing pratfalls. Cynthia's self-deprecating style engages you from the first page as you learn about the business of sports reporting and about the world-class athletes she covered. Get ready to feel what it is like to work inside a locker room . . . from this woman's perspective. Power Play My Life Inside the Red Wings Locker Room By Cynthia Lambert Balboa Press Copyright © 2017 Cynthia Lambert All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5043-8852-8 Contents Foreword, xi, Introduction, xiii, 1 In the Beginning, 1, 2 Entry Point, 13, 3 Don't Scream!, 21, 4 "No One Wants You Here", 33, 5 I Made It, 41, 6 Cutting My Teeth, 57, 7 Finding My Voice, 65, 8 Eric, What's That On Your Tie?, 73, 9 Understanding Jacques, 93, 10 Kirk Gibson Isn't So Tough, 99, 11 The Day That Wouldn't End, 111, 12 "No Bill, Just You", 125, 13 Celebrity Encounters, 137, 14 Taking Advantage of Access, 149, 15 The Ever-expanding Job, 159, 16 Unforgettable Kindness, 165, 17 The Final Push, 179, 18 Winning ... and Loss, 189, 19 Breakaway, 199, Post Script, 205, CHAPTER 1 In the Beginning I can't ever remember not liking hockey. That's actually kind of a strange thing, too, considering I never played it. That is, unless you count the ice rink my three brothers and I had in our backyard for half of one winter. There, for a few winter weeks, we re-created the glories – albeit, not the grace – of Gordie Howe, Marcel Dionne, Guy Charron and all of our other NHL favorites with rudimentary moves on the bumpy ice on Rossiter in our east side Detroit neighborhood. I must have been about seven or eight years old when the incident that led to the deconstruction of our rink happened. My brothers and I were hosting about a dozen kids from the neighborhood on the small backyard rink, playing a heated game of hockey. I, being the ever-cautious one, opted not to wear my skates and instead donned my boots with the smooth rubber bottoms. My warped reasoning was that they would offer me more mobility and stability. I believe I was on the ice for only a few minutes before I was checked into the boards (actually, the cyclone fencing) by a neighborhood boy. As could be expected with smooth-bottomed rubber boots, I lost my footing. My feet went out from under me and back I went, smacking my head hard onto the ice. And I wasn't wearing a helmet. No one wore helmets then, not even the NHL players. These were the late 1960s, the days of old time hockey. The next thing I remembered was my parents leading me into our Ford Galaxy 500 parked in front of our house. After pausing to vomit into the snow, I crawled into the backseat, where I laid down for the short drive to St. John Hospital where I stayed for three days in a ward with adult women. The diagnosis was a bad concussion. I'm not exactly sure why I wasn't in a pediatric ward – maybe no room – so instead, I was flanked by women just under the geriatric cutoff. The food was horrible – Cream of Wheat for breakfast with a glass of cranberry juice to wash it down. Every morning I would give the mush to the large woman in the bed next to me and sip my juice. Lunch and dinner went about the same, drinking only cranberry juice and nibbling on crackers. I couldn't wait to get back home to my mom's cooking, my own bed and my brothers' teasing. When I finally arrived home three days later, the backyard rink was chipped and bumpy. My parents decided that one kid in the hospital was enough for that winter. Gone was the rink. No more glories of scoring a winning goal or pretending we were Olympic skaters. All of it vanished with one stinking concussion. But all was not lost on the hockey front. Since I came from strong French Canadian roots – notably, the St. Croix family of Barachois, Quebec – hockey was in my blood. From the time I was a little girl, I was drawn to the thrill and brutality of hockey (please don't judge). Then the biggest score happened. My mother's aunt,