from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

Ilitch, the self-made man and longtime owner of the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Tigers, passed away at the age of 87. Dolan, the son of the 90-year-old cable magnate Charles Dolan, whose father founded HBO, in the headlines again for his messy unnecessary squabble with former NBA star Charles Oakley.

A tale of two owners and an up-close view of what sound ownership can mean in professional sport. You will have to search long and hard to find anyone to say a bad word about Ilitch: The players who played for him. The coaches who coached for him. The managers who managed for him. He was father figure or uncle to all of them.

Dolan’s New York Knicks are a textbook of corporate dysfunction. The dots don’t connect with this team from owner to Phil Jackson to Carmelo Anthony to the fans at Madison Square Garden to the former players like the hard-headed Oakley.

Ilitch left behind a legacy of not just sport and family and business but community. Dolan is probably too myopic and too consumed to even notice.

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