Lions hold an open workout
Source: Daniel Mears / The Detroit News
Yesterday morning, the Detroit Lions held a public offseason workout/practice at a local high school, Detroit Renaissance. For more information on the workout, you can visit my Lions’ blog at MVN.
They decided on Renaissance because they recently put in a new artificial turf field, much like the ones at Allen Park and Ford Field, and the Detroit Lions Charities actually had helped pay for the new turf.
The practice was open to the public and around 300 fans attended. Most of those in attendance were football players and coaches, but everyone enjoyed seeing professionals practice and interact with the crowd. Many of the players observing the practice got to meet with some of the Lions’ players afterwards. Head coach Rod Marinelli was the one who pushed this open workout and was pleased with the outcome.
Why am I mentioning this Lions’ workout on a Red Wings’ blog? Well, the Lions apparently hold only one open practice per year. This was the first time since 2002 that the Lions have held a public workout during the offseason. It was such a success on Friday that the team is considering opening training camp to a few hundred fans in July.
The Lions are working on increasing fan access to fans and I’d hope we would see the Wings work on this next season as well. Admittedly, the Wings already have training camp open to fans in Traverse City every year, but I’d love to see them hold five public practices each season. During the past two seasons, they’ve had one public practice. Before that? Zero (at least to my knowledge).
I don’t understand why teams like the Lions and Red Wings do not hold more public practices. I don’t expect them to do so for every practice, but it seems like the coaches, players, and fans all enjoy these practices. Why do it only once a season?
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