(light music continues) - Hello everyone, I'm Matthew Ozanich and welcome to another installment of Destination Michigan.

Today's adventure will be chock full of video games, bridges, and toilet paper.

Now, you may ask, what do any of these things have in common?

And the short answer is nothing.

But that's not going to stop us from getting out on the road to explore the Great Lake state.

Our first stop today will be the Block House in Alma, where this old opera house is given new life as one of Michigan's premier eSports venues.

Then we're gonna shoot down to Battle Creek to take a stroll through Historic Bridge Park and meet the man who's on a mission to train the next generation of riveters.

After that, we'll shoot up to Boyne Mountain to take in the breathtaking views from the SkyBridge.

Finally, we're gonna wrap things up on the campus of Central Michigan University, where a basketball tradition gets resurrected.

Don't go anywhere because our destination Michigan adventure begins right now.

(light upbeat music) In recent years, eSports have become a worldwide phenomenon, taking what was once a very solitary pastime and transforming it into an exciting and engaging experience that brings people together.

And here in Michigan, there's one business that's making eSports more accessible than ever before.

So come along with us as we pay a visit to Block House in Alma.

(electronic music) In the quiet college town of Alma Michigan, there's something new and exciting happening downtown that's bringing in visitors from near and far.

Welcome to Block House.

- The live eSports, the great food and the craft cocktails.

So we kind of have, we have something for everybody.

You know, we have people, yeah, come from all over just to kind of see what it is, what's this all about?

And then if you do come on a competition day and just feel the excitement, you know?

- The nicest part about Block House is the diversity of experiences that it can provide.

And that's why I think it has such potential for growth.

It has such flexibility.

(electronic music continues) - I've been here almost four years and at that point, this place looked completely different.

There was no screens, no TVs.

So now just like seeing the transformation of like the design and how that plays such a big part in how people feel welcome here too, and how they feel comfortable and open enough to pick up a controller that they wouldn't normally pick up or try a new dish that they wouldn't normally try.

(electronic music continues) - The biggest thing that a lot of us say around here, especially amongst staff, they call it a block home, just because of the way it is and how people interact with each other.

You got open concept, you got our couches, we got our chairs, we got people just running around, kids just having a fun, it feels like you're at a house, and just hearing like all the laughter and the screams and people just enjoying their food.

And sometimes you even have random tables just talking to each other.

It's phenomenal how that works out.

- [Narrator] Chef Ethan Smerdon whips up incredible dishes that have become favorites among foodies in the area, but in addition to being a stellar restaurant, Block House is also the home turf of eSports teams at the middle school, high school and college level.

(upbeat music) And it all started when Alma College, located just down the road, had an open space that they just weren't sure how to utilize.

- I'm a professor at Alma College and one day the college said, "we have this vacant space in the Opera House.

"Do you have any ideas of what we could do with it?

"We wanted to do something with digital media."

And I said, "eSports.

"eSports, yes."

(upbeat music continues) This building goes back to the 1890s.

Clearly, so much history here.

And looking through some of the archival photographs, you can see that this was originally, opera was the great entertainment of its day.

- [Narrator] Flash forward to today where eSports is one of the fastest growing and farthest reaching entertainment outlets in existence.

For decades, video games have been a solitary pastime, but that notion gets turned on its head inside the walls of Block House.

Here it's about family, teamwork and community.

- To stay true to our mission in bringing communities together, we have to appeal to the whole gaming spectrum.

And so we talk about, there's hardcore gamers who know the ins and outs of all the machines around us.

There's casual gamers who occasionally will pick up a video game, and then there's a non-gamers.

And if we can make all that, that whole spectrum feel at home here, then we're doing something right.

- [Narrator] Since it's inception, Block House has worked tirelessly to spread their message to schools and parents in hopes of granting opportunities to students who might otherwise feel left out.

- So there's a lot of talks between ourselves and the schools, kind of getting them to realize what it is and how it can benefit, you know, this group of students that maybe don't have an outlet or have an activity, and that if they do it here at our Block House location, there's no cost, no extra work for them, just a matter letting their kids come play and saying, we can put Alma High School on a jersey or something for the kids.

So they get, you know, great jerseys, great swag kind of stuff that we can help provide so that they can be a part of it.

- For a high school student who likes PC gaming, but maybe they don't have the same setup at home.

We have high speed internet, we have these high end gaming PCs that are, but they're all like top end gaming.

If you want to play in eSports, these computers are, like dwarf anything that you would need to play those games.

- Some of the kids on the teams are three season athletes.

They've done this kind of stuff before.

There's other players that have never been on an organized team before.

And to see them pull on a jersey that has the logo of their school, to get on a stage and compete for their school, representing their school, and then have their family in the audience.

And when they score, instead of it just being logged downstairs in the basement, suddenly the whole venue erupts in cheers and applause.

And to see their face light up, it's a gift.

- [Narrator] And the experience is enhanced with live commentary and streaming of the competitions on Twitch.

It adds so much excitement to the proceedings and makes the experience more accessible to non-gamers.

- Someone like me, I appreciate the shout casters because they help me understand the game when I would normally have no idea what's happening.

- The shout casters and the productions help a ton.

When you're here and you're watching something that might not be familiar, but you hear someone else's voice and it sounds like a basketball game or a football game, and the commentator gets excited, you can start to, you start to feel it and you can start to learn about the game.

Right now, eSports it's so fast moving and it's growing so quickly, like there is so much potential to impact not just the surrounding community, but beyond that, the interconnectedness of eSports.

you end up rippling out into communities in a radius that we didn't even expect.

And now we're all really excited about seeing Block House grow into a second location.

And then even beyond that and start thinking even beyond Michigan.

One of the first few nights we were open, we realized that we had kind of inverted the model of Chuck E. Cheese.

And Chuck E. Cheese.

you know, they build a place for kids and the parents can get something to eat, but here we built a place where parents and college kids, they feel at home, but yet kids have a lot to do too.

- Our next story starts with a trip to Emmett Township in Calhoun County and a one-of-a-kind park.

This park is home to five historic metal trust bridges that have been restored and preserved, making the entire area an outdoor museum.

Overseeing that process was Vern Mesler and what he started in Calhoun County has expanded far beyond the park.

- We're at Historic Bridge Park in Emmett Township, just outside of Battle Creek, Michigan.

Over time this park kind of became a little untouched, a little unloved and needed some help.

And there were some really visionary people back in the the nineties looking at restoring historic bridges.

If a municipality is getting rid of a bridge, an iron bridge, a steel bridge, that they can actually get that, get some grants, get some funding to restore those bridges and use them for for other things.

- [Narrator] Those visionaries already had possession of two bridges.

Now they needed a foreman, enter Vern Mesler.

He had the credentials, resume and the willingness to accept the task of restoring bridges fabricated in the late 1800s and erecting them in a park.

- What I used is my experience as a steel fabricator, my experience as an educator, and the first two bridges was the 20 Mile Bridge and 133rd Avenue Bridge.

They sat out beside the garage and Battle Creek.

Alongside the garage, there they sat.

- [Narrator] The team of craftsmen along with engineer Dennis Randolph, were ready to begin this process.

They had the pieces, the support of the community, and at the helm, Vern.

- First of all, I didn't know what wrought iron was and I had to learn what that, how do you repair wrought iron?

It's different than you pair steel.

The other thing was rivets.

I walked in to Dennis Randolph one day and I says, "you know, I don't wanna weld those bridges "and I don't want to put both, let's do riveting."

Great idea, Vern!

I only had one problem.

I didn't know how to rivet.

(laughs) - [Narrator] Now a quick lesson on rivets.

A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener designed to join two or more components together.

In the field, before the rivet is installed, it is heated to nearly 900 degrees Celsius.

Then it is driven into place using a pneumatic rivet or hammer.

The hammer drives the rivet against the holder-on forming a convex shaped head.

As it cools, the rivet expands locking the steel together.

- Some things in this undertaking might have seemed impossible to some people, but it never came across that way either to Vern or the engineer Dennis Randolph.

It was like this can be done.

And I think it was Vern's love of history that really led him to want to do something historically accurate about these bridges.

And that's what led him to the learning how to rivet.

You know, let's restore these using the original techniques, honoring the craftsmen who built them.

- [Narrator] And that is what Vern did.

He learned how to rivet, learning as much as he could about the process to restore the bridges the right way and honoring the craftsmen who constructed them.

Due rising cost of skilled workers needed to install rivets, welding and bolting replaced the riveting process.

Over time, the skills and knowledge of these craftsmen declined and were all but forgotten.

These bridges are their record.

(machine rumbling) (light music) - Just what the bridges represent.

They represent an untold story.

An untold story and I've been trying to tell that story, trying to find out how these, all these bridges, first of all, were built, by who built them and how were they were built, how were the parts made?

They were fabricated.

That's the, it's the craftsman's record.

And that's what I find fascinating.

And what I try to write about and talk about is how the craftsmen built these, that's the hard part.

You know, who were they and how did they develop their skills?

If you look in the library, you'll find hundreds of books on the engineers and their design of bridges, but there's not a single book written about the craftsmen worked on those bridges.

Where the written record and the bridges?

(light music continues) - Before they were just scrapped, but actually bringing 'em back and putting them to use for pedestrians.

There's a lot of memory in these bridges.

People will come here and, you know, just as we're doing maintenance on the parks, we'll talk to people that are coming here because that bridge used to be in their neighborhood and they used to go over that bridge with their mom and dad when it was a single lane bridge that had a little stop sign that you had to take turns.

So these bridges have memories and they have importance to local people.

So having it here, you know, we have people visit and really that are passionate or wanna learn how these bridges were made in the first place, 'cause it really is a lost art.

- [Narrator] The five historical bridges are an interactive experience.

Walking across the bridge, you are almost transported back in time to the communities who utilize them for decades.

The structures also stand as monuments honoring the workers, the men and women who hammered the steel and drove the rivets.

And Vern has a special request for visitors to the park.

- I want 'em to look at the parts.

I want 'em to look at the pieces.

I want 'em to look at, I wanna look at the eye bar.

I want 'em to look at the rivets.

I want 'em to look at the design of the bridge.

Okay, the parts, every part has a story.

Every bridge here has a story.

- Vern's work for Calhoun County was just the beginning.

His passion for riveting has led to workshops and demonstrations, not only in Michigan but around the country.

He was invited to demonstrate hot riveting at the 75th anniversary celebration of the Golden Gate Bridge.

It is safe to say his work has reinvigorated the craft of riveting.

- You think the best example of that is the Cut River Bridge.

The Michigan Department of Transportation chose to specify hot riveting for the Cut River Bridge Rehabilitation Project.

Which in a way is sort of unheard of, but I think that is a testament to the historic bridge park and all of the knowledge that came out of that restoration process.

- The Mackinac Bridge made history when it was built in 1957.

It's the world's fifth largest suspension bridge that connects our two peninsulas.

But in northwest Michigan, there's a new bridge setting records of its own.

We now join Stefanie Mills as she takes us on a walk across SkyBridge at Boyne Mountain, the world's longest timber tower suspension bridge.

- As you're walking across it, not only can you see through the grates, but then you also come upon a 36 foot section of glass.

And again, not for the faint of heart.

- [Narrator] Thrill seekers and casual explorers will love the latest edition at Boyne Mountain in Boyne Falls.

- People are wowed by it.

I think they at first don't really understand it.

They're like, it's a bridge in Michigan.

Where does it go?

Where does it take you?

It's more of an experience.

This is like part thrill, part scenic.

(upbeat music) Vistas that you're taking in while you're here over the panoramic Boyne Valley.

But it also is thrilling to walk across it because it moves when you walk on it.

- [Narrator] SkyBridge is a 1,200 foot long and 118 foot high pedestrian bridge.

It looks enormous from down below and even more gigantic when you're up close with it.

You can't get to it by car.

Nope!

There's only one way up and that's with a scenic chairlift ride.

It's an architectural masterpiece you can enjoy year round and even at night.

- The most exciting thing about SkyBridge Michigan is every season offers a completely different experience.

Right now, the views you can see far out into the valley, but it's all snow covered.

I think the cooler thing right now is that you've got skiers and borders riding right below the bridge all around you.

It's an experience for someone who's not a skier or a snowboarder.

(upbeat music continues) We have it open from, you know, daytime into the evening.

So it is lit for nighttime, which is also a different experience, day versus night.

And then obviously we had an incredible fall.

Oh my goodness, so much depth in in the views.

When you were standing on the bridge, you could just see for miles and miles and all the color changes.

(upbeat music continues) (light music) - [Narrator] Construction of the bridge started in fall of 2021.

It was the talk of the town as crews got to work.

A massive undertaking, including local crews and resources, pulled it off in time for the grand opening in fall of 2022.

- They were able to build these huge timber towers.

They actually, we had them pulled aside on the snow last winter, and then during the course of the winter, the team was indoors welding.

So they were building all the bridge pieces, the floor pieces that you walk across.

(light music continues) One of the coolest things was when they raised the towers, there's these huge cranes up here, picking them up and actually having 'em stand for the first time.

The timber is actually sourced from the Pacific Northwest because the trees are obviously way taller there.

All sourced through a local lumber company, though, Matelski Lumber right here in Boyne Falls.

(light music continues) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] The first few weeks after SkyBridge opened popularity soared, visitors from across the state walked across it taking in views that go on for miles that you won't get to see anywhere else.

Really, all four seasons offer visitors breathtaking views.

- I think it's one of those places you could go any time of year and just have a unique experience for the outdoor enthusiast or maybe the person who doesn't know if they like the outdoors.

This is an easy way to get yourself somewhere with amazing views.

It's an enjoyable experience.

It's a comfortable experience.

Unless you're afraid of heights, (laughs) then it might be a little scary.

But you know, it's just so cool.

We have different places up here that you can dine and get a beverage, you know, on each side of the bridge.

We have options for that.

There's fire pits year round that are lit for people to stay warm by and it's such a unique place that I would hate for somebody to miss it.

(upbeat music continues) - For our final story today we're gonna be packing up the Millennium Falcon and heading back to the 1980s to reminisce about a tradition that brought CMU basketball fans to their feet and had rolls of toilet paper cascading down to the court.

Let's make the jump to light speed and head to Mount Pleasant to unroll at toilet paper tossing tradition.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Oh yes, Michiganders love their traditions, especially on the field of play.

- [Announcer] Number one, Lou Whitaker.

- [Narrator] Maybe you miss part of a school day and headed down to the ballpark for the Tigers home opener.

Like I did with my dad.

Or you might be familiar with the flying octopus that makes an appearance during a Red Wing's playoff run.

- [Announcer] The Detroit Red Wings, win the Stanley Cup from the New York Rangers in the seventh and deciding games.

- [Narrator] That tradition dates back to 1952.

When teams needed eight wins or legs to capture Lord Stanley's cup.

But on the hardwood in Mount Pleasant, there's a toilet paper tossing tradition that started in the eighties, fizzled fast, and was brought back for fans to experience again.

- I mean I think part of it is building an aura about the university, right?

It's a tradition.

We know universities have their traditions.

Whoever is the sousaphone that gets to dot the I in Ohio at Ohio State, across the nation, we know that there is somebody who gets to dot the I at Ohio State.

CMU, we had the toilet paper toss and it puts you on the map.

There's always a myth, right?

That 1986, '87 we have this great toilet paper toss event at CMU and it was really big in '86, '87, I mean that that is the case.

But it started a few years prior.

So in 1982, CMU was doing well in basketball.

We had Melvin "Sugar" McLaughlin, we had some really pretty powerful teams at the time.

The student section was called the Snake Pit and there was a lot of school spirit.

And so the men of (indistinct) came up with an idea and that was, let's throw a toilet paper.

But it was brief, short-lived.

It doesn't sound like CMU was really too keen on it, but in '86, '87 it really takes off.

The students are gonna do it.

You wait until the first basket is scored by central, and we're not talking free throws, we're talking the first real basket, and then let the toilet paper fly.

It became a thing in that '86, '87 season because CMU had some really good players at that point, right?

Dan Majerle's one of 'em, Lightning Levy's on the court.

You knew you were going into Rose Arena and you were going to have to endure a rowdy crowd.

A couple of really talented players and this toilet paper tradition.

- [Narrator] Former CMU great, United States Olympian and NBA All-Star, Dan Majerle, remembers Rose Arena rocking in the eighties.

- I just look back at this positively, but I don't think I was a typical student.

I was just all basketball and studies.

I didn't really do a whole lot.

I show everybody the picture and I talk about it, you know, back in Phoenix and they look at that picture and how crazy it was.

It's kind of something that really just happened.

In '87 we had such a good team.

I believe we didn't even lose a game that year at home and you know, I think we beat Wisconsin and some other teams here, went to Western Kentucky, which was ranked and beat them there.

And then get to the tournament and that whole toilet paper thing just kind of came outta nowhere.

And I tell people it's the craziest thing.

Daryl Miller would jump center, he would tip it to Tommie Johnson on the left side.

I would streaked down the right side and we had throw an alley-oop and it had to be, worked almost eight outta 10 times.

Which just amazed me.

Back then, I don't know if coaches scouted a lot because I know now you get every play on tape.

And the first thing I would be as a coach that came to Central Michigan and say, "okay, don't let him first win the tip "and they do win the tip.

"Just go hog Majerle, "don't let him run down the right and get a dunk."

But for some reason it worked and it's a great way to start the game.

And then obviously, when the toilet paper came down, it was, you can't even describe it.

It's not like it was like a few hundred rolls, it was thousands of rolls and it was just a straight white out.

And it was pretty special to experience that all year long.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This budding eighties tradition at CMU received national amplification thanks to the sharp eye of CMU photographer Peggy Brisbane.

- And so the iconic picture is from March of 1987 in a game against Western, which is always a great thing.

Have the rivalry game, have the iconic picture.

Peggy Brisbane and Robert Barclay in 1987 were the university photographers and they said you had to time it right.

You had to shoot the wind up, the actual throw and everything and then the aftermath.

And you had to time it and you only have so many, this is film so you don't have a ton of exposure.

Peggy's photo, a student intern at Central asked if he could submit it on her behalf to People Magazine and he did, and it became part of a two-page thread in People Magazine.

Look at this tradition at this regional state university in the Midwest.

So Peggy's photo was nationwide.

The legend of it has grown.

- [Narrator] The toilet paper tossing tradition was revived in 2004 to commemorate a century of hoops at CMU.

- [Announcer] As we celebrate 100 seasons of CMU basketball!

(crowd cheering) - [Narrator] While your favorite Star Wars toys might be forever lost in the eighties, CMU gave fans another chance to squeeze and throw the Charmin.

But the toilet paper toss comes with added meaning for "Thunder" Dan Majerle, whose son Max is a guard for the Chippewas.

- For that opportunity to be here at Central Michigan, my alma mater, it was great, 'cause he has never been back here.

And I just told him about the campus and you know, my experiences here and what I had and the tradition that this place has.

I'm excited, I'm a little nervous.

I don't wanna miss the layup.

So what I might do, 'cause I haven't touched the basketball in a while, is have Max come out and maybe he dunk it for the first one and have him experience what I did in that situation.

So it's nice to be a part of Central Michigan.

You know, being proud of the university and being a part of that's fun.

The administration here is doing a good job of trying to tap into what's happened here before.

To be able to get back and to support this community and support the athletic situation here is fun.

So I'm glad I'm back for it.

I can't wait for tonight.

I think it should be a lot of fun and it's gonna be exciting.

I think it's important that you can bring back some traditions to your alma mater too, and be a part of that.

- And just like that, this episode of Destination Michigan comes to a close.

From everyone here, thank you so much for watching and we'll catch you next time.

(light music) (light music continues)