Digging into hockey history: How Anthropology Alum Cory Nummer became a Red Wings curator
By Ted Montgomery
Cory Nummer remembers observing her mom watching the Detroit Red Wings on their march to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in 42 years in the spring of 1997. As her mom white-knuckled it through those tense games, she recalls thinking how cool hockey was. Little did she know that nearly 30 years later she would share a lift in the Little Caesars Arena elevator with Red Wings Hall-of-Famer and General Manager Steve Yzerman during the course of her workday as a curator at Ilitch Holdings Inc.
Nummer’s career path was a long and circuitous one, punctuated by some stops and starts, all while holding down several jobs working for museums and other arts organizations.
Nummer grew up an only child in Farmington Hills. Her father has had a long career as a designer in the automotive industry and her mother is retired from the mortgage industry. She felt the first stirrings of interest in anthropology as she watched police procedurals like Bones and CSI. “I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do, but I did have an intense interest in anthropology,” she said.
After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Madonna University in Livonia, where she earned a bachelor's in applied forensic science. She decided to pursue her master’s degree at Wayne State University. “I’d always thought that I would go on to get a doctorate degree, but after that first semester at Wayne State, I realized I was done pursuing more degrees,” Nummer said.
In May 2019, she earned her master’s in anthropology with a concentration in historical archaeology. “I call it my degree in digging in the dirt.”
Nummer said she is grateful for the instructors who mentored her through her time at Wayne State. “Under the mentorship and leadership of Krysta (Ryzewski) and Julie (Lesnik) I was encouraged to explore outside my comfort zone, to discover new ways of thinking and doing. I had never experienced that before with advisors or even professors. Without them, I'm not sure I would have ended up where I did. The genuine care and compassion they have for their students is obvious and you feel it every day.”
While pursuing her degrees, Nummer held down three jobs. She worked for her local historical society, the Detroit Historical Museum and the Henry Ford Museum. She also worked for years at the West Bloomfield Public Library, where she met Clayton, her future husband.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself to get a job in my chosen field,” Nummer said. “I felt like after all the hard work I put into my post-graduate education people expected it to pay off for me.”
It was a former colleague of Nummer’s who called to tell her of an opportunity with The Ilitch Companies as a curator. She leapt into action preparing for her first interview. “Overpreparing, you might say,” Nummer admitted.
Thus began an agonizing wait to hear if she got the job during the holiday break. “I convinced myself that I probably didn’t get the job and that it was okay,” Nummer said. “But I really wanted this job.”
Finally, an offer was made and she joined The Ilitch Companies and the two other curators on her team. Nummer was responsible for the Detroit Red Wings and Little Caesars Arena (LCA), while her colleagues handled the Detroit Tigers, Comerica Park, the Fox Theatre and other Ilitch company initiatives.
“We have a fun vibe and we work really well together,” Nummer said of her fellow team members. “We all pitch in to help each other.”
Nummer’s main duties are ideating and creating displays that focus on the people and the history of the Red Wings. Her favorite display she’s worked on to date has been hosting and creating the display for Women’s History Night at LCA. “It’s especially meaningful to me. Eight women are featured in the display. Marguerite Norris (the first female president of an NHL team at 25 years old), Colleen Howe, Marian Ilitch and several others. All played key roles in the history of Red Wings hockey and in the community.”
She’s also gotten to interact with Red Wings Hall of Fame players, most notably Pavel Datsyuk and Mike Vernon. She created displays to honor both players at the time they were inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame; Vernon in 2023 and Datsyuk in 2024.
“One of the most meaningful things is seeing how people react to the displays and how invested they become in their stories,” Nummer said. “Also, you want your heroes to turn out to be nice people, and Mike Vernon was really great to work with, so it was really cool to see people coming to honor him.”
Today, Cory and Clayton Nummer have a home in West Bloomfield that they share with a strong-willed but sweet rescue dog named Jyn. Clayton’s grandparents built the house in 1969 and lived in it until 2017, when Clayton and Cory moved in. It’s very near to the library where they first laid eyes on each other.
Nummer sometimes looks back on her journey and marvels at all the twists and turns she navigated to get to this place in her life. She credits Wayne State with playing a pivotal role in making that journey a successful one.
“I benefited greatly from going to school in a place I had never spent much time in growing up. My worldview infinitely expanded in my time at WSU and I will be forever grateful for that. It reshaped me as a person. I may not be an anthropologist by trade, but I like to believe that anthropology plays a role in the way I think, how I tell stories, and how I represent all the different groups of people involved with the team I love.”
Recently, she had a moment of revelation. “It was a Tuesday morning and I was working on a new display in LCA near the practice rink. I poked my head in and saw the team practicing and thought to myself, ‘I am so lucky to be able to do what I do every day.’”