Sports fans in the Detroit metro area have been keeping very busy this spring. On May 25th the Motor City became the first metropolitan area to host a Stanley Cup finals game and an NBA conference finals game on the same day. The hard-hitting Detroit Tigers also hosted their division foes Minnesota Twins the same night. Despite the conventional notion that Detroit is going through an economic crisis, over 80,000 people turned out to support the home teams. The notoriously rowdy fans in the area could be compensating for gas prices rising over $4 in the Motor City by investing in flasks to offset the cost of $10 beers inside the stadiums, but I doubt it.

Detroit has a long, storied tradition of being a great sports city so it’s no surprise people are showing up for big time playoff games, but there was even a near sellout crowd for a regular season baseball game. That’s rare. The financial hardships being felt by many in the state won’t having much of an effect on attendance records because, like in any major metropolitan area, there are a lot of wealthy sports fans too.

The Detroit Tigers, Red Wings, Pistons and Lions all have extremely loyal fan bases that have been cultivated over multiple generations. No economic down turn will stop people from filling up Comerica Park, Joe Louis Arena, The Palace of Auburn Hills or Ford Field. How else could you explain people still showing up to watch the god awful Lions?

However, recent attendance figures for Red Wings games have been lagging, to the point that they no longer led the league this year, (they were top 5). This has created quite an abundance of reactionary media stories searching for an explanation. Most people have mistakenly started blaming the unemployment rate, the foreclosure rate or even the rate of goons on the squad to explain the slight drop off in attendance. These factors probably contribute, but they’re not the worth the print they’ve been given.

The Detroit area is going through a pretty rough time financially, the unemployment and home foreclosure rates are well above the national average, but the people most likely to be hampered by these factors were phased out of making substantial contributions to spectator sports when luxury boxes replaced the bleachers.

A prominent Canadian hockey personality mused that Detroit is a red neck city that doesn’t value a finesse team enough to show up for their games. Don Cherry is off his rocker – he has a point about physical play being crucial to success, but he must not have been around for the Sergei Federov era in Detroit.

It’s pretty simple: winning three Stanley Cup Championships with the last core of players really spoiled Red Wings fans. A much more plausible explanation for the slight decrease in attendance is the disappointing post season performances this core of players has had in recent seasons, which were previewed by excellent regular seasons. Consistently winning the Presidents Cup, which is awarded to the team with the best regular season record, and then consistently floundering in the early rounds of the playoffs will brew skepticism among the faithful and repel the fair-weather fans from shelling out big bucks to come to a game.

The current crop of Red Wings is playing phenomenal this postseason. A good chunk of their success can be attributed to the maturation of former prospects into legit superstars – Datsyuk and Zetterberg – the continued stellar play of old stalwarts – Lidstrom and Osgood – and the above average play of key support players – Franzen and Holmstrom.

Look for attendance numbers to be back up next year, especially if the team brings back the Stanley Cup to Hockeytown, USA.