Carlos Monarrez

Detroit Free Press

Where do you start with Al Sobotka?

With the octopus? Maybe.

The Zamboni? Yes, of course, the Zamboni.

Perhaps with the arena itself? After all, this, ultimately, is a story about a man and the building he has cared for over a lifetime of work. One man breathing life into a structure. The structure breathing back. A rhythmic relationship — symbiotic even — between two towering figures of Detroit, one made of concrete and steel, the other flesh and bone.

Al Sobotka: Zamboni driver, octopus twirler, subject of Brett Hull’s torments, barbecue chef nonpareil, bedeviller of Scotty Bowman’s practice, custodian of Hockeytown and too many other unofficial positions to mention. Or simply this. Al Sobotka: Detroit Red Wings employee since 1971 and Joe Louis Arena building manager. His role will shift next season to Little Caesars Arena, the new home site of both the Wings and Pistons.

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General manager Ken Holland joined the Wings in 1983 as a minor-league goalie before he moved into personnel. Holland always assumed Sobotka just kind of came with the place.

“I’ve just known Al was part of the furniture,” Holland said. “He’s here. He’s here morning, noon and night, and he never appears to have someone subbing it for him. Whenever there needs to be a Zamboni job, he’s on one of the Zambonis. He’s just here all the time.”

Furniture, but no doormat. Ask anyone around the Joe about the kind of tight ship he runs.

Karen Newman, the Wings’ longtime national anthem singer, has been Sobotka’s friend for more than a quarter-century, and she gave a speech to introduce him when he was given a special recognition award in 2009 at the Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame in Troy. She has seen both sides of Sobotka: the softy who tosses pucks to kids in the stands and gives her a traditional hug and kiss before she sings — and the demanding taskmaster around the Joe.

“He couldn’t be any kinder,” Newman said. “But then there’s another side to Al, too. Don’t anybody get in the way with the production down there, with what he’s got to do. Do not get in the way of that. He’s hard on his guys. He demands the best work out of everybody.”

Newman has yet another unofficial title for Sobotka.

“He’s the Godfather,” she said. “He really is kind of like the Godfather. People either really love him or fear him. Thankfully, I’m in the category that just has to love him. I don’t have to fear him.”

Before Al swung anything, he was just another Detroit kid

Before Sobotka, 63, scared anyone or swung anything, he was just a kid growing up in Detroit in the 1960s. He attended Detroit Northwestern and graduated from Denby High, but he is reticent about his youth.

“Well, I had kind of a hard, whatever childhood,” is the only thing he really says.

It’s clear he is uncomfortable with the topic, and he moves past it quickly. But there was one shining highlight from his youth.

“I worked at a little grocery store on Chene Street, a little supermarket and going through school and basically supporting myself,” he said. “When I was 17, I had my own car. I had a 1969 Chrysler New Yorker when I was 17. I saved my money.”

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Nearly 50 years later, Sobotka’s pride in this accomplishment is evident by the upturned corners of his mouth that hide behind a salt-and-pepper mustache.

After Sobotka graduated from Denby, he knew the grocery store wasn’t his future. Friends from the east-side neighborhood who worked at Olympia helped him get hired in 1971, working on the stadium’s cleanup crew.

“So I went on midnights for two years, I believe, sweeping, changing over, learning everything,” he said. “And then moved on to day shift until 1978. Worked on days. When we took Cobo Arena over, I got promoted to building operations manager.”

Sobotka started working on a crew of about 12 at Olympia. He now oversees a crew of about 70 people. He makes schedules, oversees the midnight shift and changeovers from hockey to other events the stadium hosts.

He says the Joe is more than just a building

Sobotka takes the elevator by the east entrance up to the concourse. He walks directly toward Section 214 and grabs a chair to sit and talk about Joe Louis Arena, the stadium the Wings moved into in 1979.

This is a special place. Sobotka knows exactly what he’s doing. The entrance to the bottom of Section 214 is wide and as you walk out toward the rink, the entire arena opens up and swallows you. The view boasts what seems to be an endless array of championship banners and the club’s six retired numbers, some of which belong on hockey’s Mt. Rushmore.

There might not be a better and more impressive view in hockey, in an arena where actual history has been made.

So let's ask Sobotka: This isn’t just a building, is it?

“Well,” he said with a brief pause, “it’s more than that. You know, 25 years of playoffs, the four Cups, being in the finals six times. I mean, it kind of grows on you.

“A couple of my guys tell me that I’m married to this job and to this building. I spend more time here than at home.”

Holland backs up this statement.

“It appears he sleeps here,” Holland said. “He’s here in the morning, he’s here in the middle of the day, and he’s here at night. If I hear there was a midget game the day before, he appeared to watch the midget game the day before.

“He must have living quarters at the Joe because he appears to be here at the rink long hours, lots of hours and day after day after day. I think it really speaks to his passion for the sport, his passion for the job. I know he takes great pride.”

Olympia Stadium, which opened in 1927, had great history, too. Gordie Howe played there and the Wings won seven Stanley Cups at the Old Red Barn. But the Wings missed the playoffs 11 of the final 13 seasons at Olympia.

“There was so much excitement (about Joe Louis) because the old building, it was going down, there was no air conditioning,” Sobotka said. “We didn’t make the playoffs that many years back then, except for (1977-78) we went a couple (rounds). It was hard keeping the ice at what we wanted to."

Sobotka shoots a quick glance at Section 214 in the upper bowl. Above him are the banners. Behind him is that amazing view. Soon, it will be gone forever.

“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “this is a great, old building and still is. There isn’t a bad seat in the house. This place is amazing to me.”

Let's talk about those eight-legged freaks...

Let’s not get too maudlin. After all, we’re talking about sports. We’re talking about hockey. And here that means a fun, crazy, slimy, gross, only-in-Detroit tradition.

If the Red Wings ever erect statues at Little Caesars Arena, there ought to be three men and moments who are memorialized: Howe, Steve Yzerman hoisting the Stanley Cup in 1997 and Sobotka swinging an octopus above his head.

No one thing should define a man or his lifetime of work. But let’s face it: The first thing anyone thinks of when they think of Sobotka is the octopus. Heck, the Wings’ official mascot is an octopus and it’s named after him, so why fight it? Sobotka certainly doesn’t.

Sobotka holds dear the tradition that started in April 1952. That’s when Pete and Jerry Cusimano, brothers who owned a Detroit seafood store, decided it would be a good idea to throw an octopus onto the ice for good luck during the Stanley Cup playoffs at Olympia Stadium. The eight tentacles represented the number of wins it took to win the Cup back then.

“As you know, that tradition started in ’52 by the Cusimano brothers,” Sobotka said. “I guess I took it over in the early ’90s and started the good old swing, and it’s been swing time ever since.”

Sobotka’s first swing mirrors some of our greatest fables, like King Arthur pulling Excalibur from a stone or Thor wielding his hammer, Mjolnir — a talisman that identifies and elevates a hero. Just like Arthur, Sobotka had little idea he was assuming the mantle of greatness with his first twirl that instantly drew a cheer from the crowd.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just went out there. I didn’t use a shovel. I just grabbed them by my hand and went out and gave it a little twirl and that was it.”

In the 2008 playoffs, the NHL started a mini-war with the Wings by trying to tame Sobotka’s twirling. A truce of sorts was reached, and Sobotka limits his twirl to the last few feet before he leaves the ice.

But don’t worry. The octopus twirl is here to stay, if Sobotka has anything to say about it. He has a from-my-cold-dead-hands sort of tone when he speaks of the tradition.

“Yeah, we still do it. And we’ll continue doing it,” Sobotka said. “It can get out of hand, though. We’ve just got to watch the league. They frown a little bit, but you know.”

Newman respects the tradition, but don’t count her as one of its most ardent fans. More than once a flying octopus has almost struck her while she has been singing. Besides that, cephalopods are fairly disgusting.

“I think he’s had to stop swinging it so much because — this is really gross — pieces of it come off and fly around and he doesn’t want to mess up his ice,” Newman said. “… So, if you notice now, he waits until he gets toward the Zamboni entrance and then he’ll swing it. The crowd can still see him, but it’s nice and close so his crew can come out and clean up the bits and pieces. It’s so gross.”

In all the time he has known Sobotka, the image that most sticks with Holland is of Sobotka waving the octopus as the Joe roars.

“I don’t think there’s as many traditions,” Holland said, “that have hung on as long as the octopus in Detroit.”

Question: How do you drive a Zamboni?

The short answer: Carefully.

The bottom of Section 114 at Joe Louis Arena is truncated to allow for a larger opening to the east end of the ice. Before that opening, there is an anteroom called the Zamboni pit, where the Wings park their two ice-resurfacing machines.

In 1949, Frank Zamboni invented his ingenious machine in suburban Los Angeles, where the company still is headquartered. The Zamboni might be the most unique and mystifying apparatus in all of sports. It has the familiar look of a vehicle, yet it does an entirely unfamiliar job that seems to require pushing, pulling, pumping, spinning, twisting and driving motions all at once.

Sobotka could fairly be called the world’s most famous Zamboni driver. He has appeared on nationally televised games and in national commercials for the NHL. In 1999, he finished second to Jimmy MacNeil, who worked in Wayne Gretzky’s hometown of Brantford, Ontario, in a driver-of-the-year contest held by the Zamboni Co. Sobotka would have won easily but Wings fans were accused of stuffing the Internet ballot box and MacNeil won in a recount.

Nicholas J. Cotsonika, a columnist for NHL.com and a former Wings beat writer for the Free Press, explained Sobotka’s fame this way: “I don’t think there’s another rink in the league where everybody knows the Zamboni driver.”

Zambonis: Hockey's answer to the Batmobile

Waiting 15 minutes in the Zamboni pit for Sobotka to finish a meeting and explain how the machine works is, well, pretty exciting. It’s a little like waiting for Batman to give you a guided tour of the Batmobile. When Sobotka finally arrives, he turns on the machine with all the pageantry of your neighbor starting up his lawnmower. Excitement over.

The Zamboni is complicated. There’s a blade that shaves a thin layer of ice, then an auger system that throws the ice into a snow tank. Then hot water is applied to the surface and spread evenly behind the Zamboni to make a clean sheet of ice.

Sobotka has been driving the Zamboni for 43 years. He has learned all the intricacies to the operation that he describes as “a skill and an art.”

“Knowing what to cut, how much to cut, how much water to lay down, how fast to go,” he said. “Be observant: A deeper rut, lay a little extra water. People say drive fast. I say it’s about quality not quantity.”

Don’t ever ask Sobotka how fast the Zamboni goes. He will tell you what he tells everyone: 75 m.p.h. But that’s on the back of a truck when it’s being transported. He doesn’t really know how fast the Zamboni goes because he’s always more concerned with the ice quality than finishing quickly.

Besides, Sobotka can’t go too fast because he’s always giving someone a ride. One of the most popular requests the Wings get is to ride the Zamboni with Sobotka. He has given rides to former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and former Lion Ndamukong Suh. A 100-year-old lady crossed a ride with Sobotka off her bucket list.

“You name them,” he said, “we’ve had them.”

You can call him the Ice Man...

Understand this about the man. The ice is Sobotka’s crown jewel, and he takes anything personally that affects it or is said about its quality.

“He was very emotional about if the ice was fine,” Holland said, “(if) it was a bad report or bad review.”

During the 1998 Stanley Cup playoffs, Newman was lowered from the rafters with a harness before each home game. In a rehearsal for her first drop, she wore a head-to-toe, red-sequin outfit. Sobotka put the kibosh on the outfit immediately.

“And literally there were maybe two or three sequins on the ice,” Newman said. “He’s like, ‘That’s it. You can’t wear that. You can’t wear that outfit. That’s going to be a problem for the skaters.’

“I guess it would be if they caught a blade on one of those sequins. … He was protecting the guys, you know?”

In his four decades of grooming the ice at the Joe, one player stands out for being the most critical of its condition.

“Brett Hull,” Sobotka said reflexively. “See how fast that came out? He was always joking around a lot, too. He puts on the back of his jersey in ’02, he put tape and made a sign on the back of his jersey that says, ‘The ice sucks, but the barbecue rocks.’ ”

Hull was a jokester and would needle anyone about anything.

“He was kidding a lot,” Sobotka said. “I told him, ‘You’re cut out of the barbecues.’ ”

Hull buried the hatchet by paying for a new barbecue grill. Just like that, he was back in.

...Or the Grill Master

Sobotka is beloved by fans for swinging octopi and driving the Zamboni. But he’s adored by the players, coaches and staff at the Joe for his famous barbecues. For the past two decades, Sobotka has broken out the grill about once a month and cooks up a feast near the loading bay by the Zamboni pit.

“In the last 20 years, they’ve been basically all the same,” he said. “From Italian sausage to Cajun sausage. Ribs, burgers, chicken. Chicken Shack coleslaw and potatoes, that’s a mainstay. And we get a salad from the kitchen. Added some cookies; last year, pork and beans.”

Sobotka does all the prep himself, from making the burgers to marinating the chicken. He gets the Cajun chicken sausage from Capital Poultry in Eastern Market. He can’t remember exactly when, where or why he started.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was just talking with some guys. I love cooking, I love barbecuing. Let’s have a lunch, let’s do this.”

Holland never has dared to risk his invitation.

“No, I’ve been lucky,” he said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for the organization to bond and the players take turns paying for Al’s barbeque. But you toe the line because you don’t want to have your invitation revoked. Al has threatened that through the years, but I continue to get an invitation so I certainly look forward to his barbecue once a month.”

Ask him about smoking-mad Scotty

Sobotka’s favorite story about his barbecue features former coach Scotty Bowman, who was famous for blowing his stack over the smallest transgressions.

Sobotka was grilling his feast during practice and a little too much smoke wafted in over the ice. Soon, it was Bowman who was fuming.

“Scotty was, ‘Cancel practice! All the frickin’ jerseys smell like smoke, barbecue!’ ” Sobotka remembered with thorough joy. “Players are laughing.”

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Bowman’s anger lasted as long as the ribs on his plate.

“He comes running down here,” Sobotka said. “ ‘Let’s eat! What’re we having? Who made that? What did you put on it? How long did it cook? How much you pay for it?’ He would ask six, eight questions. ‘OK, I’ll have that piece.’ ”

If barbecue can’t bring men together, nothing can.

Memories in the octopus office

“Smell that,” Sobotka said as he points to an open cardboard box.

We are in his office, which is next to the Zamboni pit. He doesn’t have a name outside on the black door. Just an Al the Octopus sticker. He doesn’t want too many people to know where to find him.

Inside the box there’s a bag. It’s open and contains several pounds of spice rub. Sobotka’s office is a messy museum, a monument to his entire career working for the Wings. His office is a good size, probably 15 feet by 15 feet. There’s a big desk, nice wood cabinets, a fridge, a flat-screen TV and even a couch. But there are so many relics scattered throughout that there’s hardly anywhere to stand.

From nowhere, Sobotka instantly produces the program from the first event at Joe Louis: the Dec. 12, 1979, basketball game between Michigan and the University of Detroit. It is in pristine condition. He holds up a large ring with about 20 keys on it. They unlocked every door at the Olympia.

There are faded newspaper clippings. There are pictures everywhere, with maybe his favorite being the Detroit skyline that features a cutout of Chris Osgood’s goalie helmet on top of one building, which Osgood put there himself.

The crowdedness, the low ceiling and the dim lighting make the office feel like someone’s den. Like someone’s home. And, of course, that makes sense because Sobotka has lived a life here.

He once worked a 36-hour shift. For the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, he didn’t leave the building for 10 straight days. He worked 18-hour shifts and slept four hours a night on a couch in the back of the Wings’ dressing room.

“I remember I was three minutes late for getting the ice ready and the lady just chewed me out,” he said of a figure skating official. “That’s what I wanted to hear at 6 a.m.”

'It's time to go'

Sobotka’s three favorite memories at Joe Louis Arena are of the Wings ending a 42-year drought and winning the Stanley Cup in 1997, of the Darren McCarty-Claude Lemieux turtle fight that led to an historic melee, and of Howe returning for the 1980 NHL All-Star Game. It was Howe’s formal farewell to the league and to the Joe.

Now it’s time for Sobotka to say good-bye to the Joe. For all of us to say good-bye.

Sobotka has worked for the Wings for 45 years and plans to make it to 50. But the rest of those years will come at Little Caesars Arena. It won’t be the same. It won’t be the Joe, with its lack of doors and windows, its sadistic outdoor steps, the stinky stairwells, the fussy plumbing, the crazy rink boards made of plywood and plastic.

But it’s time. It’s time for Sobotka to say good-bye and thanks to the building that has given so much to him while asking so much of him. And maybe it’s time for the building to also say thanks to the man who has shown it such devotion.

“I love this building really,” Sobotka said quietly. “But, like I said, it’s time to go.”

Thank you, Joe Louis Arena; It has been a sweet, smelly ride

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Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.