Today in Detroit Sports History, Match 26th, 1997- This might very well be the defining moment for a generation of Detroit Red Wings fans, and maybe even in the entire lexicon of Detroit sports history.
On March 26th,1997 the Detroit Red Wings faced off against the Colorado Avalanche for the third time of the 1996-97 NHL season. This night was a little different as it was the first time that season that Avalanche enforcer Claude Lemieux dressed for a game against he Wings.
Detroit sports fans will remember a viscous, cowardly hit Claude applied to the back of Kris Draper in the 1996 Western Conference Finals the year before. Draper was handling the puck near the boards with his back to Lemieux, when Claude hit him busting his jaw on the in boards. Draper not only suffered a broken jaw, but a broken orbital bone, and a shattered cheek bone. Draper would require reconstructive surgery to fix all the damage.
Lemieux did not stand by the tried and true rules of hockey, if you can read a guys number do not check him. This was not a hockey check, it was a physical assault that had no place in a sporting arena. Lemieux is a coward, and the fight at the Joe proved just that.
The Summer of 1996 was a long one for Detroit Sports fans, the hated Av’s won the Stanley Cup, we had to watch those deranged Florida Panthers fans throw rats all summer, and while the Wings added Forward Brendan Shanahan early in the 1996-97 season, the Wings did not feel like a team capable of winning the Stanley Cup.
On March 26th 1997 all that would change.
In the first period of the game tensions began to mount at the 18:22 mark of that first period a scrum developed between Igor Larionov of the Wings and Peter Forsberg of the Avalanche. This is when Wings enforcer Darren McCarty sought his revenge on Lemieux.
After getting away from the officials McCarty dropped Lemieux with a right hook from the side and got him down to the ice and continued to pummel him. Instead of fighting like a man, or trying to defend what he had done the previous season, Lemieux covered himself up and tried to hide from the downfall of blows being rained upon him. The coward Lemieux was forever labeled a turtle for his embarrassing showing in the fight with McCarty.
The fighting would continue all over the ice. As Av’s goalie Patrick Roy came out of the net to defend his teammates, when he was tackled in mid air by Shanahan, and then Wings Goalie Mike Vernon went onto kick his (expletive deleted).
While the fighting was great, and the revenge was sweet, this game unified a Wings team that needed a spark heading towards the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals. This incident brought the team together, brought the city behind them, and as of March 27th, 1997 there was little doubt that the Wings would win their first Stanley Cup Championship in 42 years.
Without a doubt it was the best hockey game I ever witnessed. I watched it live at the bar that night, and again at home the next day. For years I had it recorded and would watch it over, and over again.
Clearly the Wings won this brawl. Roy, Forsberg, and Lemieux himself left he ice bloodied, as the Wings and their fans rejoiced. It was a throwback to old time hockey and the kind of passion that the NHL of today is lacking.
Many will say that as the players involved in this brawl left for new teams or retired that this feud between these two teams dissolved. I will tell you this, I have a hockey pennant in my office for every NHL club save one, care to venture a guess which team is missing?
Related Links:
• Detroit Red Wings news and notes
• March in Detroit Sports History
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