DETROIT — It’s a few minutes before puck drop at Jack Adams Memorial Arena, and the assistant coach is giving his team the game plan. The players are told to move as a unit and protect the net. The wingers are instructed to cover the point. The Pee-Wee team is prompted to clap it up for one young player in particular, who scored a goal in the previous game.



If you didn’t know any better, this could be any youth hockey locker room, anywhere in America. But here, the point is that it is decidedly not just anywhere.



This is Detroit — not Livonia or Troy or Birmingham, or any of the hockey hotbeds in the surrounding suburbs. And for a city that proclaims itself “Hockeytown,” you’re hard-pressed to actually find much organized hockey in town here. There is the elite Little Caesars AAA program, partially housed inside the Red Wings’ own arena. There is a well-regarded learn-to-play program at Clark Park, though the outdoor...