It's fair to call Detroit, Michigan 'Hockeytown' for more than a few reasons. But in the late 1990s, long before social media and online marketing became hot topics, professional sports teams needed to come up with clever ways to market themselves.
So, in 1996, the Red Wings adopted the moniker 'Hockeytown' for marketing purposes, and they even put the slogan on their center-ice logo. Of cours,e this one excited just about every die-hard hockey fan in Detroit, plus those in the local sports media and even hockey fans nationwide...for the most part, anyway.
And really, if any US-based city that ha a pro hockey team deserves it, it's Detroit, Michigan.