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Willa Ford to Mike Modano: Join Detroit to stick it to Dallas

Premiere Of Warner Bros' "Friday The 13th" - Arrivals

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 09: Actress Willa Ford arrives on the red carpet for the Los Angeles premiere of “Friday The 13th” at the Graumans Chinese Theater on February 09, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Willa Ford

Jason Merritt

On a day where the Red Wings were beyond excited to introduce Mike Modano as the newest member of the Detroit Red Wings, you had to figure that somewhere a story about his signing with one of the Dallas Stars’ biggest rivals was going to pop up discussing the reasons for doing so. Having that story come from Mike Modano’s wife, Willa Ford was an unexpected turn of events.

Mlive.com’s Ansar Khan got the low-down from the part-time pop star and actress turned hockey wife and Stars fans might have someone to finally point their anger over Modano’s departure towards.

Mike Modano holds no grudges towards the Dallas Stars for not re-signing him, but he admits their decision not to bring him back will motivate him this season.

His wife, Mandy, an actress who goes by the stage name Willa Ford, seems even more motivated.

“I think it was more so on my wife’s radar than anything,’' Modano said. “She wanted me to go play, and especially in Detroit to kind of shove it up everybody’s ... you know.

“That was her precise words and she felt it was a great opportunity to do that in Detroit and loved the Red Wings and knew it was one of our rivals. She felt going in there and having the chance to play with good players was a real good opportunity.”

While we’ve seen other sports have their fair share of high-profile wives (pitcher Kris Benson’s wife Anna comes to mind) and the NHL has more than enough starlet girlfriends/wives (Hillary Duff with Mike Comrie and Carrie Underwood with Mike Fisher) having said spouse come out in such a feisty manner is something completely new for the NHL. Even going back to the days of Wayne Gretzky and Janet Jones, she never really spoke out about Wayne playing in Edmonton although The Great One being dealt to Los Angeles worked out pretty well for her modeling/acting career.

To have her speak out so as to want her husband to join Detroit solely to “shove it up Dallas’ you-know-what”... That’s the kind of smack-talk we enjoy seeing around these parts. While I doubt we’ll see Willa Ford get the same kind of treatment by television cameras that Kate Hudson got during the 2009 World Series while rooting for her then-boyfriend Alex Rodriguez, we can only imagine that Mrs. Modano’s trip to Dallas for the Wings game with the Stars on October 14th might be a bit uncomfortable with her getting booed in the press box will be prime footage for the folks in Texas.