50 YEARS OF WINGS FANDOM & GENERATIONAL MEMORIES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 14, 2025

50 YEARS OF WINGS FANDOM & GENERATIONAL MEMORIES

By Collin Murphy for K-Wings.com

KALAMAZOO, MI - Hull. Hextall. Sutter. Howe. Hockey history is rich with family legacies, and in the 50th year of pro hockey in Kalamazoo, families all over southwest Michigan have their own K-Wings legacies, too.

With the fourth-oldest minor pro hockey team in North America, Kalamazoo has celebrated three league championships (1979 & ‘80 Turner Cup, 2006 Colonial Cup) and over 2,000 regular and postseason wins. The K-Wings’ 5,113-seat barn, Wings Event Center, has seen over 6.5 million fans come through the gates in its storied history.

“Going to K-Wings games was always a special treat,” said Mary Brancaleon. “My dad’s birthday is on Valentine’s Day so I always associate Pink Ice games with my dad’s birthday, because that’s what we would do.”

Pink Ice Games have also been special for Rob & Dee Kesterke, who have been coming to Wings Event Center games for over 30 years and have had season tickets for over a decade.

“(Pink Ice) is probably my favorite game,” Rob said. “Honoring the women warriors who are fighting or survived cancer, and the ice is that bright pink, that’s cool.”

As an avid sports fan, Kesterke used coming to K-Wings games as a way to woo his now wife as well.

“One of my first dates with (my wife) Dee was at Wings Stadium,” Kesterke said. “Now, Wings Event Center is probably our favorite out of all the sports venues we go to.”

K-Wings games can also offer an avenue to strengthen family connections.

“It’s added another thing he (my husband) and my dad can talk about,” Brancaleon said. “It’s really nice to see them deepen their relationship because my husband didn’t know hockey, he didn’t grow up with it, so it’s cool to watch him ask all of the questions and learn about it and see their relationship get closer.”

For families in the Kalamazoo area, Wings games serve as opportunities to have a fun outing between grandparents and grandchildren.

“I grew up playing hockey, so it was quite common when I was staying at (my grandfather’s) house, or he’d just call randomly and we’d go to games,” said Taylor Knight. “I got to spend time with my grandpa, it was something we bonded over… we spent a lot of time watching hockey together.”

Knight has now passed on that passion for hockey to his children.

“My kids love it, they love going to the games,” Knight said. “They’re right on the glass watching warmups… My two-year-old plays hockey, like, eight hours a day because of the K-Wings.”

While Knight and many others have introduced their children to hockey with the K-Wings, sometimes the kids introduce it to their parents and grandparents instead.

“I’ve been coming to hockey games for years, but just within the last three years, I’ve been taking my nephew and my son,” Jaime Stone-McEnany said. “I invited my parents to come, and just to watch their faces, especially my dad, who’s 72 years old, when there’s a fight, he gets really into it.”

Thus, the Wings are a must-witness for her family.

“K-Wings games are a family event now,” Stone-McEnany said. “My son has autism, so taking him to any events when he was younger was a difficult task. Fortunately, he enjoys coming, he loves it, and now K-Wings games are a big to-do because of how much fun we have.”

While lots of K-Wings fans love that the team is near their home in West Michigan, Gene and Kelly Pennington make a point of flying from Maryland to Kalamazoo, or wherever they may be on the road, catching a majority of the games each regular season.

“Between home and road games, I usually hit 40 to 50 and my wife goes to 20 to 30 per year,” Gene said. “We became fans when the K-Wings were affiliated with the New Jersey Devils (in 2009-10), which is the (NHL) team we follow back East.”

For the Penningtons, the importance of the Kalamazoo community to the hockey club was apparent from their first trip to Wings Event Center.

“We traveled to Kalamazoo three or four times (that year),” Pennington said. “After the Devils moved their affiliation back east, Kelly and I were committed to keep coming ever since. We love the people, the community and everything the K-Wings represent.”

That community connection also creates lifelong fans out of kids who’re allowed the opportunity to go wild at K-Wings games.

“I remember running up and down the seats, playing, just going with my grandparents,” Charles Peak said about coming to K-Wings games as a child. “I was born in Kalamazoo and have always thought of the K-Wings as ours.”

For Peak, the K-Wings now serve as an avenue to show his children the team and city he grew up with.

“It’s so much fun watching how much my kids have gotten into the sport,” Peak said. “And that generational connection, the family, the city, it’s important to me.”

The old barn itself is a part of the allure for many fans. It’s one of the rare facilities where almost every seat is considered the best seat in the house.

“There isn’t a bad seat in (Wings Event Center),” Kesterke said. “A friend of mine got us tickets once, years ago, and said ‘they’re nosebleeds,’ I said, ‘no, nosebleeds are when you go to the United Center (in Chicago) that sits 20,000 and you go up to the third balcony with your oxygen pack and binoculars.’”

For those willing to travel, those friendships can grow over the course of seeing the Wings play on the road as well.

“Last year, Steve Snider, a season ticket holder that sits directly across from us, we went to St. John’s, Newfoundland together and watched the K-Wings play out there on the road,” Pennington said. “We also rented a party van earlier this season and took a group of 15 people to a game at Fort Wayne.”

At that point in the year, the team was struggling, but the K-Wings are now surging into the playoff hunt.

“This year has been a challenge, it’s been a difficult year,” Pennington said. “But even still, in a year when we were (11) points out of the playoffs (on Jan. 26), right now we sit a point out of the playoffs and I think we’re going to make it... I don’t think this team folds, they fight to the finish and I love that.”

While the team battles for a playoff bid, Wings Event Center has regularly been packed. A full barn is a fun barn, too, and Kalamazoo’s average attendance has grown by roughly 1,500 since a low point nearly a decade ago.

“Over the course of the last 15 or so years, I’m in awe of the way the season ticket base has grown and how the fans have grown,” Pennigton said. “We went from about 2,000 average (2,298 in 2015-16) to like 3,500 (3,778 so far this season), and the front office has done an amazing job of getting (fans) in seats, it’s tremendous.”

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Ready to start your family’s K-Wings tradition? Head to kwings.com for all our ticket options, including Group Tickets, Flexi Plans and more!

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The Kalamazoo Wings are a professional hockey team located in southwest Michigan that has been a staple in the Kalamazoo, MI professional sports landscape since 1974. The K-Wings compete in the ECHL and are the AA affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks and the American Hockey League’s Abbotsford Canucks. Kalamazoo plays their 36 regular season home games at Wings Event Center from October through April.

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